Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/111120
Ooh La La What���s better than Chanel? More Chanel! The French fashion house opens the doors to its new boutique. A BY BEE-SHYUAN CHANG s Chanel approaches its 20-year anniversary at Bal Harbour Shops, the French luxury retailer felt it was time to freshen up its outpost there. According to Barbara Cirkva, Chanel���s fashion division president, the Bal Harbour Shops boutique has emerged as ���a major focal point for local, domestic and international clients from around the world.��� The new look, unveiled this month after a major ten-month renovation and expansion, was conceived by the talented mind of architect Peter Marino���a Chanel collaborator since 1995. ���It���s one of the most beautiful Chanel boutiques in the world,��� says Cirkva. In addition to letting in tons of natural light with the addition of floor-to-ceiling glass, the Bal Harbour store is dotted with sitespecific, commissioned pieces by artists Marc Swanson, Peter Dayton, Louis Durot and Liza Lou. ���The combination of art and architecture is meant to make the whole greater,��� designer Marino explains. An avid art collector, the jet-setting architect had the commissioned artists weave in elements of fashion materials and motifs. The Brooklyn-based Swanson, for example, created a sculpture of a seated buck encrusted in dazzling crystal, whereas Dayton, an artist based in East Hampton, formed a collage of abstract camellias (Coco Chanel���s favorite bloom) in black, white and gold to decorate the wall. French sculptor and designer Durot has created Aspirale, a spiraling chair in fashion-favorite black. Meanwhile, Liza Lou, a New York native who has shown in galleries including Deitch Projects and London���s White Cube, threaded gold beads onto wire to form a sheaf. Called Gather, the painstaking handiwork that goes into stringing each bead might reference, say, the long atelier hours spent on Chanel���s recent Spring 2013 Haute Couture collection, designed by the inimitable Karl Lagerfeld. With gorgeously louche tweed suiting and elegant dresses that framed slim shoulders with exaggerated, widened collars, the couture runway was something to behold. Lagerfeld, who took over as chief designer in 1983 and blazed paths���while sipping Diet Coke (his renowned drink of choice), catapulting white Siamese kitties into the must-have accessory category (his beloved Choupette) and providing memorable pop culture commentary (nay, he says, on Michelle Obama���s bangs)��� continues to imaginatively reinvent Coco���s gamine coquetry: frip and froth with a tomboyish heart. The outspoken Lagerfeld even got jaded fashion heads talking by capping off the stupendous Spring Haute Couture show, held in the Grand Palais and festooned in a nature theme, with a pair of brides. On closer inspection, those dream wedding gowns��� feathers, tulle and lace topped with floppy fascinators���were the stuff of wild dreams. Add on a few iconic luxuries, such as the perfume No. 5, the 2.55 quilted handbag and the little tweed boxy jackets, and why not linger in fantasyland a little longer? Marino, who considered design, functionality and beauty when revamping the store, agrees: ���I want people to enjoy the shopping experience, not feel like they want to leave the moment they walk through the doors.��� BH BAL HARBOUR 163