(Bloomberg) -- Earlier this year it was announced that the luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton would demolish and rebuild its Midtown Manhattan flagship location, a 20-story, glass-sheathed building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. But the label, owned by the French conglomerate LVMH, didn’t want to be without a shopping location near what is known as “billionaires’ row”—a stretch of real estate south of Central Park that’s home to luxury housing and high-profile brands such as Tiffany & Co., Chanel and Rolex.
On Wednesday in New York in a tour with Bloomberg, Louis Vuitton revealed its temporary home, across the street and a half-block away from its original, at 6 E. 57th Street. The building, formerly Niketown, was used by Tiffany (another LVMH property) as it went through its own remodel. Louis Vuitton, one of the world’s largest luxury players, used the opportunity to flex its might, introducing an impressive 36,000 square feet of retail spread across five floors. The store will open to the public on Friday.
There’s ample space for its money-printing leather goods on the ground floor, full women’s and men’s collections on the second and third floors, respectively, an appointment-only VIP salon on the fifth floor, and a restaurant and chocolatier. It’s a bold show of force at a time when the company has reported falling revenue because of a softening of the luxury market, particularly in China.
Once inside the store, visitors are greeted with a soaring atrium featuring four vertiginous stacks of Louis Vuitton trunks of different styles—an installation by Shohei Shigematsu, a partner at the internationally renowned architecture firm OMA.
“We wanted to create something that was spatial but also fun and sculptural,” says Shigematsu. His challenge was to construct an opening gambit that was arresting and surprising, that highlighted the brand’s history as a trunkmaker and that still left the sales floor feeling open.
“So we decided to use the trunk as a module, with these towers that are visible from everywhere and can show the variation of materiality,” he says. Indeed, the towers, which reach some 50 feet skyward, can be seen from all shop floors, which surround and look out on the central court.
The space is also a museum to Louis Vuitton. Along the crisscrossing escalators are pictures of various LV stores through the years, and in each elevator lobby an archival collaborative bag is displayed—including ones made with artists Richard Prince (2008), Yayoi Kusama (2003), Takashi Murakami (2003), designer Stephen Sprouse (2001) and streetwear brand Supreme (2017).
Other walls that at first glance appear to be a rippling metallic design are, in fact, mirrored versions of the brand’s popular Speedy and Keepall bags at various sizes. At opening there will be a collection of New York-exclusive products, including notebooks, baseball caps and handbags, often featuring an apple design.
The brand is particularly proud to introduce in North America its hospitality concept, which is already present at some locations in Asia.
On the fourth floor is a restaurant called Le Café that will serve light bites (which the brand winkingly calls “luxury snacks”) under the eye of New York-based chefs Christophe Ballanca and Mary George. They in turn were overseen by French chefs Arnaud Donckele and Maxime Frederic, who is the brand’s master chocolatier.
In the restaurant, which is also referred to as the “library” as it also sells books, diners can order caviar and waffles or hamburgers served on Louis Vuitton-branded plates. Innumerable luggage tags line the ceiling.
Not satisfied to have its construction scaffolding be an eyesore, Louis Vuitton continued the trunk theme across 57th Street at the original flagship store, where the smoky glass facade has been covered by a comically large structure that resembles a stack of LV luggage big enough for a giant on the go. In essence, the entire block now is a large advertisement for the brand—shiny, glamorous and impossible to ignore.
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