Lanvin Readies Store for New York Debut

Fashion brand Lanvin (Paris) is preparing to open its first New York store this week, at 815 Madison Avenue near 68th Street. The 3550-square-foot store covers the first three floors of a five-story town house, with the upper two floors housing the company’s corporate headquarters in September.

“We’re the last designer house in the world that didn’t have a store in New York,” Lanvin designer Alber Elbaz told Women's Wear Daily.

The store design and layout were inspired by the raw space, reports WWD. “I’m not very flagship oriented,” Elbaz says. “We don’t take a concept that we opened in Paris or Tokyo [and replicate it]. We have to go with the structure of the store and the architecture.”

Among the design elements are white and dark gray Carrara marble flooring, glass and blackened steel vitrines, art deco and art nouveau chandeliers and archival photos in simple black frames of Jeanne-Marie Lanvin hanging on the walls. An area outside the main room is devoted to footwear, with shoes and boots displayed in black cubbies in a grid along one wall.

The company is also planning stores in Beijing and Los Angeles. The New York location is the third U.S. store after Bal Harbour, Fla., and Las Vegas.