Revealed
December 5, 2024
It’s laborious to search out one other New York designer who’s such a cheerleader for town than Michael Kors. Whereas his namesake label (and private way of life) appeals to the jetset, Kors and that clan at all times contact again down in New York. His newest love letter to Manhattan comes within the type of a brand new retailer. The Madison Avenue flagship will home the Micheal Kors Assortment purses, equipment, and ready-to-wear because the model celebrates 25 years on the tony buying hall in 2025. Kors joins others within the current development of transferring nearer to 57th Road.
Michael Kors
The transfer additionally signaled a less-is-more strategy from the designer because it has pared again the scale, decreasing the footprint of the previous retailer additional north on 67th Road and Madison Avenue. That retailer changed the unique Madison Avenue flagship situated even larger up at 76th Road close to the Carlyle and was 5,500 sq ft unfold throughout two ranges. The brand new area at 667 Madison Avenue at 61st Road is a cool 2,800 ss ft one-level area.
The transfer South places Kors nearer to the 57th Road motion and different luxurious labels akin to Valentino, Tod’s, Roger Vivier, IWC Schaffhausen, Moncler, and the designer’s former facet gig, Céline. Publish-pandemic, the avenue, a luxurious ghost city, initially confirmed areas being rented additional uptown. Nonetheless, within the final 12 months or so, it’s trended downward as manufacturers hope to catch the client foot site visitors from 57th Road that also anchors prime designer manufacturers akin to Chanel, Dior, Fendi, Miu Miu, and Louis Vuitton. The latter simply opened a short lived store whereas renovating its Fifth Avenue flagship in a grandiose vogue just like the Tiffany retailer simply throughout the road.
In accordance with an organization spokesperson, the brand new retailer has “substantial” altering rooms behind the area, making dressing rooms bigger so each consumer has a VIP expertise. Housing the gathering on one flooring can be mentioned to simplify the buying expertise.
It additionally provides to the intimacy of the shop, aiming to ship a classy, sparse-but-luxurious residential house feeling. “New York City is my home, and I’m very excited to bring our new vision to a new location on Madison Avenue,” mentioned Michael Kors himself. “The shop’s inside has a welcoming really feel, a way of luxurious and refinement that provides you an opportunity to step away from the pace of metropolis life and take a while to find one thing new.”
In another nod to his beloved New York, he tapped Brooklyn artist Max Simon to custom design a sizeable Modernist mobile measuring almost 10 ft in length to greet guests entering the store, which boasts sculptural 14-ft-high ceilings. In the show salon, an oversized Noguchi lamp, the Akari Lamp 125F, pays homage to another New York-based artist, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who built and worked in his museum. It’s still open to the public today in Long Island City, and its gift shop sells the lamp based on traditional Japanese lanterns.
Combining various wood, raw concrete elements, and curvilinear blackened steel display cases with antique brass and oxidized maple touches offers a minimalist feel to fixtures. Marble walls add drama to the natural light glass-front store. The store will also feature a curated selection of organic sculptures interspersed throughout the space, designed by the brand’s in-house store design team.
While the design is unique to this location, it serves as a blueprint for future boutiques and current ones with a renovation on the horizon. However, a spokesperson for the brand noted that no additional stores are planned to be added to the current line-up of 14 stores, which include six in North America, five in Europe, one in the Middle East, and two in Asia. Seven of these locations are Michael Kors Collection boutiques, and seven are hybrid stores that carry both Michael Kors Collection and MICHAEL Michael Kors.
Michael Kors
