Maison Margiela Introduces New Store Concept in Miami’s Design District
Maison Margiela introduces its new store concept in the US with a boutique located in Miami’s Design District.
The store concept is 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.
The 243-square meter boutique spans over two levels and 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.
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.
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 colour-contrasting epoxy resin in optical white.
The ceilings and walls of fitting rooms – the most personal inner sanctums of a store – are painted in an almost black, dark-green high gloss and create a deep shimmering shine echoing Japanese lacquer cabinets.
Maison Margiela’s former Miami location was at 3930 NE 2nd Avenue. The new Design District location is Maison Margiela’s fifth store in the US, in addition to the Maison’s two stores in New York, as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Anne Holtrop’s store concept for Maison Margiela debuted with the Bruton Street store in London, followed by Avenue Montaigne in Paris, Osaka, Japan, and Shanghai, China.
To mark the opening, a limited edition of Tabi Bianchetto and Replica Bianchetto will be available exclusively at the Miami Design District Store. In this new reinterpretation as limited edition Recicla, the new chapter in the house’s lexicon, the signature Tabi ankle boot from 1988 and Replica trainer from 1996 are crafted from reclaimed cotton canvas of luxury overstock and feature hand brushed white coating on a white base - the signature ‘Bianchetto’ technique of Maison Margiela which purposely chips with wear.
Store name: Maison Margiela
Design District Location: 142 NE 41st Street Miami, Florida 33137
Opening Hours: Monday through Saturday: 11:00am -7:00pm Sunday: 12:00pm – 6:00pm
About Maison
Margiela Maison Margiela is a fashion house founded in 1988 by Belgian designer Martin Margiela. The Paris-based house is synonymous with uniquely unconventional principles, and a philosophy in which deconstruction and heritage go hand in hand to create designs that showcase fashion as an art of meaning rather than a cult of personality. John Galliano was named Creative Director in 2014, bringing his sense of spectacle and creative mastery to the unique ethos of the house. Maison Margiela crosses the fashion spectrum from its ‘Artisanal’ collection, which holds the “Haute Couture” appellation since 2012, through ready-to-wear and accessories. Maison Margiela became part of OTB in 2002.