Oui oui! The French fashion house Louis Vuitton is opening a pop-up storefront at Brookfield Place. It will debut on Friday in conjunction with its “Volez, Voguez, Voyagez — Louis Vuitton” exhibition that will start the same day at the American Stock Exchange building at nearby 86 Trinity Place.
The 1,800-square-foot store will carry a curated selection of travel accessories, fragrances and leather goods, with hot-stamping personalization available. While the exhibition runs through Jan. 7, the store will remain at least through March 2018.
In keeping with the “Sail, Fly, Travel” — of course with luggage — theme of the nearby exhibit, the store’s façade will be layered with travel stickers and the designers gold monogram. The walls will also evoke the diamond-like “malletage” interior of the brands’ archival trunks, designed to protect important possessions while crisscrossing the globe.
The storefront is on the lower, southeast side of the Winter Garden next to Hermès and Omega and was one of the last available spots.
Brookfield’s Michael Goldban negotiated the deal directly with Louis Vuitton’s in-house team. “We are always seeking the most innovative and prominent brands in luxury retail, and the world-renowned legacy of Louis Vuitton is a perfect complement to this collection,” Goldban said.
The exhibition itself originated in Paris in 2015 before traveling to Tokyo and Seoul, but for its North American debut, it will have a new “chapter” dubbed “Louis Vuitton LoVes America,” with celebrity red-carpet designs, editorials and founder Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s 1893 archives at the World Expo.
Along with numerous historical artifacts, the three floors display bags, trunks, suitcases and items previously owned by Ernest Hemingway, Lauren Bacall and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
