New York’s Soho is known for its luxurious stores, which makes it a perfect spot for Alexander McQueen’s new location. The store hasn’t officially opened and security guards are literally turning away interested customers. So yeah, it’s a pretty big deal.
A McQueen employee gave a FaceTime tour to a friend of Sarah Burton’s abroad, and now it’s so obvious why people are beyond eager to get in past the beetled curtain. The store is basically part living room, part womb, and furnished in earthy materials and slightly inward slanting walls.
Chile-based architect Smiljan Radic is the genuis behind the homey design. Radic has also crafted several other McQueen stores, including the Bond Street flagship in London. “Alexander McQueen is a London-based house, and I wanted the store in New York to reflect all the elements of our London flagship,” Burton spoke of her partnership with Radic. “It has a similar feeling and shares the same spirit, uniting the cities which both have such a depth of culture and diversity.”
For both Burton and Radic, working on the brand’s retail space was a perfect fit. The two are big outdoors lovers, and incorporating natural materials into modern designs is Radic’s signature look. “I do not have too much to explain about it,” he explained, “because it was so natural and our friendship was so clear in the sense of we love how we work with each other.”
The store features a fascination and respect for nature and resourcefulness. There are American walnut and Europeak oak wood that lines the floors and walls that are sustainable sourced. The upper walls have honeycomb-like cladding on them that is a new material the brand is calling “cotton-crete”. This material is made from turning leftover cotton into a type of papier machê and stamping it against bubble wrap. It’s all just nature, nature, nature.
The goal to bringing all of these natural materials into a warmer interior space is to create a “domestic labyrinth,” per Radic — a comfortable, yet curious space. “You can travel around the store, finding the retail objects and the fashion objects, but you can also get lost in this domestic space. I think it’s kind of calm and friendly,” he said. “You do not feel strange inside, you really feel comforted — not because it’s only elegant. It’s elegant and friendly. That is not easy to find in a lot of brands. I always feel strange or weird or uncomfortable [in other stores], like there is frozen space around me. We have to take out this sensation and put kindness in the middle of the space.”
Kindness and togetherness are the vibes Burton said she is aiming for to make this store happen. “I feel this has been a time for pause, reflection, and an opportunity to focus on what we really care about,” she explained. “In some ways this harks back to the early days of McQueen, the days when, with Lee, we had to be incredibly resourceful. I like that this year has marked something of a return to that way of thinking, to those values. I also feel that the imposed distancing has somehow brought us closer together. I have never valued my team and our collaborators more.”
Alexander McQueen is on 71 Greene Street in New York City.
