These new high-end boutiques each have a different take on the future of retail, from style-defining collaborations to a focus on a behind-the-scenes look at the artisans who make the world’s most lusted-after pieces. Which will define the future of luxury? You decide…
House of Dior, New York
Longtime collaborator Peter Marino weaves together history, nowness and emotion to memorable effect
Black-biker-leather-clad architect Peter Marino is the man credited by some with single-handedly redefining luxury retail since he began working with French fashion house Dior. CEO of Christian Dior Couture Delphine Arnault was just 10 years old when she first visited 30 Avenue Montaigne, the brand’s Paris flagship, which had been Mr Dior’s own couture salon and was rejuvenated by Marino for the first time in the 1990s (he has since overseen its latest revamp in 2022). A true one-of-a-kind, he has an ability to walk elegance to the edge of daring, immediately making a mark.
Now, Arnault and Marino have collaborated on a new four-storey store on 57th Street in New York, also home to the first Dior spa in the US.
‘We wouldn’t have been able to do it with anyone else because, you know, he’s been working on our shops with my father since 1994 – when Peter was still wearing a suit,’ Arnault says with a grin. (Her father Bernard Arnault is the chairman and CEO of LVMH.) ‘He modernises the codes of our house every time, but also mixes in tradition and creates a lot of emotion. When you arrive at a shop, it should create emotion.’
For this store, that means a showstopping Claude Lalanne bench of giant aluminum gingko leaves next to an indoor living-tree grove that rises in front of the windows. ‘Every single boutique on 57th Street is so commercial; all the windows look the same. You don’t even look,’ Marino observes of the local retail landscape, ‘so I said, “We’re just going to do a garden.”’ (The secret to the trees’ continued beauty is an Austrian irrigation system that Marino says has never been used in New York before.)
‘We have private selling rooms that look better than most people’s living rooms,’ he adds, describing these spaces for VIP shoppers as having ‘a touch of 1950s, a touch of Louis XVI and a touch of Peter Marino modernity’. Even in a commercial space like this, Marino pays special attention to details such as curtains, which are hand-embroidered, and carpets.
‘I like that luxurious feeling of sinking into a carpet,’ he says. ‘It’s funny, the difference between luxury and not luxury, I always find, is the thickness of carpets.’ Marino also helped select the artwork throughout the store, including pieces by Jean-Michel Othoniel and Robert Mapplethorpe, and a dancing figure by Niki de Saint Phalle – a tribute to her connection with the brand (she modelled on catwalks, as well as inspiring and collaborating on collections). Contemporary artist Nir Hod created a riff on Monet flowers in his signature chromed-canvas technique.
Able to preserve the DNA of every brand he designs for (he has also worked for Chanel and Louis Vuitton), Marino works within what he calls ‘a concrete recipe’. One-third 18th-century history, one-third the Dior period between 1947-57 – with all the plaid and houndstooth that entails – and then, he notes, ‘I believe in adding a good third of my own touch to make sure that this boutique could never have been done before.’ It’s a formula that works. dior.com
Palazzo Fendi, Milan
More than a boutique, this is an immersive atelier where you can admire the craftsmanship of the house’s artisans
For the Milanese, the intersection between Via Montenapoleone and Corso Matteotti is often seen as the heart of the city; a meeting place. Now, with the opening of Fendi’s new flagship store, that is more true than ever. Here, behind the painstakingly refurbished rationalist façade of a building designed in the late 1930s by architect Emilio Lancia, the fashion house has opened a four-floor temple to Italian fashion. A further three storeys, to be dedicated to culinary excellence, with restaurants by Langosteria, will open soon.
The palazzo’s rationalist exterior seems almost to be in stylistic dialogue with Fendi’s Roman headquarters within the Palazzo della Civiltà Italianà – a once-abandoned representation of the last gasps of Mussolini’s pomp and power. Original marble floors are joined by new palladian and parquet ones; Roman travertine exists alongside quintessentially Milanese Ceppo di Gré stone. The lime plaster walls, meanwhile, undulate in a way reminiscent of leather rolled out on a work table.
This is just one of the carefully considered details that speak to the craftsmanship so much part of the Fendi DNA. Another is the main staircase, with its spiralling handrail in Cuoio Romano leather finished with the brand’s selleria stitching (a style once used on saddles, but now synonymous with the brand’s bags and accessories).
Not merely a temple to fashion, Palazzo Fendi Milano is also a destination for art lovers, with works by many contemporary names on display – think Anton Alvarez, Roger Cal, Levi van Veluw, Daniel Crews-Chubb, Florian Tomballe and Roberto Sironi.
In fact, the gallery experience begins upon entry, with a three-dimensional fresco by Edoardo Piermattei decorating the vaulted ceiling. His site-specific interventions are hand-sculpted from concrete.
That’s the aesthetic needs met, but this fashion house is about more than just beauty: it’s dedicated to honouring the artistry behind its designs, the practical magic. In a brilliant move, that can be found on the third floor, where you are met by the hum of sewing machines. A talented team of artisans (it takes 10 years of practice to achieve the excellence required to produce designs for Fendi) works every day in this special atelier, ready to demonstrate their skills in leatherwork and more to shoppers.
It’s an opportunity to witness the creation of masterpieces up close. Here, iconic bags like the ‘Peekaboo’ and ‘Baguette’ are arranged on aluminium shelves inspired by the designs of Franco Albini, almost camouflaged in pale hues, while colour is introduced by archival fashion pieces from the Fendi vaults. Finished pieces and works-in-progress sit side by side. This is retail that shows its workings. fendi.com
