The French luxury fashion house, Maison Margiela, just introduced its new store concept in the US on July 30th with a boutique located in Miami’s Design District. This is the first Maison Margiela store in the U.S. developed by Dutch architect Anne Holtrop and reflects the evolved visual language established at the house by creative director John Galliano.
The design was first introduced in the gypsum-cast set at the Artisanal Autumn/Winter 2018 show, and it interprets the Maison’s iconoclast codes in façade and interiors. The store is an abstract and inviting environment rooted in the notion of appropriating the inappropriate.
Settled at 142 Northeast 41st Street, the two-level, 2,616-square-foot boutique is considered among the fastest-growing brands within the OTB fashion group. It displays the complete range of Maison Margiela’s Co-Ed collections, men’s and women’s ready to wear, accessories, shoes, small leather goods, as well as jewelry, eyewear and fragrances.
At the Design District store, the defining structures of architecture – walls and columns – appear as detached objects. “Artisanal furnishings reflect and alter ideas of familiarity. Shapes skew in form, as they lean and fold around the demarcation of the space, drawing on ideas of dressing in haste native to Maison Margiela’s vocabulary,” according to a statement from the Parisian house.
Hand-cast individually in textile molds, the surfaces of the plaster walls and columns retain the memory of fabric texture and evoke the notion of an irreproducible hand-spun tactility. “The store encourages the human touch that created it.”
Retained in their natural shade of plaster – the humble inside of a wall – the structures reflect the practice of anonymity of the lining, the house term for revealing the inside of a garment traditionally concealed and revealing the inner workings. The plaster’s natural tonality further echoes the signature white of Maison Margiela.
The misfit furniture is designed in the memory of classic objects, deconstructed in form. The technique of décortiqué further materializes in shelves, display tables and seats carved in stained travertine, the natural indentations filled with color-contrasting epoxy resin in optical white.
What makes this new store opening in Miami so special is the fact that there are only four other Maison Margiela stores, including two in New York, and one each in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
To mark the grand opening, limited-edition Tabi Bianchetto and Replica Bianchetto shoes are available exclusively at the store. So whenever you are in Miami, make sure to make the time to visit the new Maison Margiela store.