Chanel Boutique in Bloomingdale Mall, New York

The new Chanel Boutique in Bloomingdale Mall, New York epitomises the world of Chanel, with its interplay of evocation and form, designer brands and materials. The space is specifically designed to showcase the brand’s products and conveys a complete design experience, achieved through a compositional and spatial approach based principally on light, colours and materials while focusing strongly on the quality of details. The intention if the project is clearly to convey a coordinated image. This new boutique showcases fashion, the unique Chanel style that was so aptly summed up by the words of Mademoiselle herself: „Fashion changes, style remains“. The French designer revolutionised the concept of formal elegance as an end in itself by transforming existing trends in the world of women’s clothing. Her collections achieved a sober luxury free from superfluity. In her famous tweed suit, the day dress became functional and at the same time sophisticated. She introduced knitwear, jerseys, jewellery, pearl necklaces, camellias and the crossed double-C logo to the world of haute couture.
This style is also reflected in the composition and „clothing“ of the Chanel shops and showrooms. Spaces are imbued with minimalism, elegance and formal rigour through the use of materials and light. Interference between excessive furnishing is minimised in order to achieve essentiality. Although not aseptic spaces, they do exhibit a search for rarefaction based on controlled, pure geometric lines in order to achieve a clear layout. A decorative role is performed by the materials themselves together with clear, saturated and definitive colour fields devoid of any hint of an ethnic flavour.
In this New York boutique, genuine luxury is achieved through a process of subtraction and precise organisation of space, using white backlit blocks against the dark background of the floor. The floor covering was crucial to this result. In remodelling this store the designer chose Campani ceramic tiles, a new wood-inspired full-body porcelain tile that combines high traffic resistance with an elegantly honed surface. This series has a different look from standard wood-imitation tiles as it uses the textures and colours of wood to achieve a perfect compromise between luxury and nature. A modern reinterpretation of wood with high technical and aesthetic characteristics, the Lumber series allows various effects to be achieved. In particular, it combines elegance with a new concept of nature in a kind of „technological arcadia“.