This rocks! From IHT. (forget suzy's sugary description, the store opening itself is the real news!)
With its blackamoor statue prancing in the window, its Mongolian rug
patterned with dragons, its gleaming Japanese cabinet and its Murano
glass chandelier, it could be just another of the upscale antique
dealers who line the Left Bank of the Seine.
But Dries Van Noten's new Paris "home" at 7 Quai Malaquais (opening
Wednesday) is an expression of the Belgian designer's aesthetic that is
a paradigm for our fashion times: an original, one-off store in which
everything from a gleaming marble console to a stalwart 1970s desk
appeals to the senses.
"It was a dream opening in this location," said Van Noten, referring
to the spacious, high-ceilinged former bookstore and its view across
the river to the Louvre.
"I wanted it to be extremely luxurious with the atmosphere of a
neighborhood," he said. "It is something very personal. And I wanted to
respect the place. Who am I to change it? I want to keep it and
treasure it and pass it on to the next generation."
The same could be said for the eclectic objects that Van Noten and
his partner Patrick Vangheluwe have garnered from flea markets. If the
sky- blue sofa arrives from America in time, it will join a baroque
bridge table that once belonged to the aesthete Charles de Bestegui, a
Chinese bird of paradise patterned rug, Ottoman velvet pillows from the
1920s, a decorative Italian screen, a Napoleon III boulle table and
intriguing pieces from Belgium. They include a 1950s abstract painting
by Marc Mendelson in the same pistachio green as the silk curtains
surrounding a tiny glass conservatory-cum-boudoir.
This glamorous boutique mirrors Van Noten's 20-year fashion
trajectory from ethnic to luxurious. While his designs and prices are
still relatively down-to-earth by big brand standards, the fabrics are
deeply researched and the embellishment increasingly dense. Focusing on
black and white for the summer season, the designer uses them as colors
with pearl bead embroideries creating patterns of cream and ivory on a
silken parka.
Overseeing the final details ? hand-painting a faux marble
wainscoting to match the console ? Van Noten described his fashion
approach as mixing unlikely elements, as seen in the store.
"I like to surround myself with things that I like ? that can teach
me something and that I have to learn to understand," the designer
said. "I am most fascinated by things that I don't like at first, that
you have to learn to appreciate."
In a world of cookie-cutter boutiques, Van Noten, with one store in
Antwerp for 20 years and another with Joyce Ma in Hong Kong, is a
standard bearer for individuality.
"Honestly, I have a problem with the fashion world ? the rhythm, the
pre- collection sales early in the season," he said. "I just want to
show clothes as nice objects and tell my own story."
Comment