Chanel inaugurates Miami Design District flagship during Art Basel festival

In Miami’s Design District, CHANEL has established a new store. The new boutique, which is located at 155 NE 41st Street in the center of the neighborhood, takes advantage of the area’s blend of design and culture. The store aspires to be a work of art in and of itself, with a pristine, chilly cube on the exterior and a warm, light-filled sanctuary on the inside. The 7,600-square-foot store features ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes, eyewear, fine jewelry, and watches from the house.

“Every store [in the Miami Design District] is attempting to outdo the next with increasingly ‘playful’ and sophisticated forms of expression.” “I find them absolutely over the top,” said Peter Marino, the New York-based architect who designed the new Chanel shop, which opened today in the crowded area. “In this setting, I’m attempting to make the Chanel building stand out with an old-fashioned simplicity that will provide a welcome respite.”

The intense sunshine along the main pedestrian plaza is tempered by the building’s white stucco exterior. To emphasize the building’s bulk and depth, several big, irregularly arranged transparent glass windows press forward at an angle. The store’s entrance has a beveled black steel frame that invites customers in. Inside, a low-lying gallery with gray wave stone flooring and white hand-plastered walls is lined with the house’s latest handbags, including the 11.12, which is interpreted differently each season, such as in metallized gold or silver.

A 30-foot tall central atrium with a 120-square-foot skylight is reached via a few stone stairs. The light-filled, double-height building features a central court inspired by gatherings during Miami’s annual Art Basel festival. It was created with the intention of being used as a venue for events.

He picked particular artwork for the shop, as he did for all of his ventures, to commemorate Gabrielle Chanel’s heritage as an arts patron. The gigantic camera obscura image “LACMA with Yang-Na 2011-Present, 1: March 8, 2017” by Vera Lutter, with its bold geometric lines and airy palm palms, lines one wall of the atrium. “A wow with a large skylight on top of it, full with light,” he said of the 40-foot white stairway leading up.