Chanel unveils arty new boutique in Miami

By

Robin Driver

Published
Dec 4, 2021

Iconic French fashion house Chanel opened a new boutique in Miami’s Design District on Thursday, revealing a two-floor couture destination designed by architect and longtime brand collaborator Peter Marino.

 
Located at 155 NE 41st Street, the new 7,600-square-foot boutique offers shoppers Chanel’s latest ready-to-wear collections, as well as handbags, shoes, eyewear, fine jewelry and watches.
 
According to the brand, New York-based Marino envisioned the store as “a celebration of Chanel for an American art capital” and sought to create a space that “is an art piece in its own right.”

The boutique’s exterior features a white stucco façade, punctuated by large, irregularly placed windows angled to emphasize the depth of the building and provide passers-by with a glimpse of the store’s welcoming, light-filled interior.
 
Upon entering the boutique, customers are drawn in by a beveled black steel frame, which opens out into a space featuring grey wave stone floors and white hand-plastered walls, where the latest Chanel handbags are on display. Moving further into the store, visitors ascend a few stone steps into a 30-foot-tall central atrium flooded with light by a 120-square-foot skylight, where shelves and embedded niches showcase watches and fine jewelry
 
A white 40-foot staircase leads up to the second floor, where the brand’s shoes and ready-to-wear can be found in dedicated salons. The footwear space features Black Belt Collection Parallelo light fixtures by Peter Marino for Venini, as well as a Fran Taubman aluminum plate coffee table, while the ready-to-wear salon is decorated with a Suduca & Merillou wood and rattan coffee table and two metallic Bent Half Tube Chairs by Voukenas Petrides.
 
The store features specially curated artworks throughout, including “LACMA with Yang- Na 2011- Present, 1: March 8, 2017,” a monumental camera obscura photograph by Vera Lutter that lines one wall of the central atrium; three works by Gregor Hildebrandt; and “Black Stella,” a large resin and acrylic commission by frequent Chanel collaborator Peter Dayton.

 
The boutique’s elevator displays another unique commission for the space, this time by Chris Succo, who spray-painted black lacquer and oil on white linen to create an abstract piece that the brand describes as “reminiscent of a dash of Mademoiselle Chanel’s own hand.”
 
The first collection to grace the new store is the brand’s Cruise 2021/22 offering, which was designed by artistic director Virginie Viard and unveiled in Les Baux-de-Provence, in southern France, earlier this year.