.jpg "With a New Store on Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré Alaïa Completes a Trilogy of Parisian Addresses")
With a New Store on Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré Alaïa Completes a Trilogy of Parisian Addresses
Today, a new Alaïa flagship opens on Paris’s famed Rue Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the third in a trilogy of Parisian addresses that includes boutiques on Rue de Moussy and Rue de Marignan. The new location was designed by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, the Japanese duo behind the SANAA firm, winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2010, who drew inspiration from the maison’s concept of “second skins,” i.e. the swooping, wrap-like silhouettes that highlight and envelop the body. A soft color palette and a “curve glass façade” that reflects the street creates an environment where “time can stand still.”
Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier has a great interest in art and design, and used a similar approach to furnish the store as he did in his famed apartment in Antwerp. Philippe Malouin’s thick, puffy Mollo chairs are juxtaposed with sculptures by the American artist and poet Diamond Stingily from her “Elephant Memory” series, made from steel chains and hand-braided synthetic hair. “It was important for me that this new store had a concept that couldn’t be found anywhere else,” explained Mulier. “We wanted it to be a place of real exchange between fashion, design, art, and architecture. Because in my eyes, the idea of dialogue is at the very heart of Alaïa.”
Photo: Courtesy of Alaïa
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