The Brand-New Biggest-Ever Louis Vuitton Store Is Also So Much More (EXCLUSIVE)
Louis Vuitton’s latest New York store might only be temporary, however, that hasn’t deterred the luxury house from pulling out all the stops.
A decade after it first opened, Louis Vuitton’s 5th Avenue New York City flagship is shuttering its doors as it undergoes a multi-year renovation. And in the interim period, the French Maison is opening the biggest Louis Vuitton store in the United States as a replacement.
Open from November 15, the new store is a five-story tall multi-faceted, immersive space. It is, effectively, Louis Vuitton World.
At the heart of this huge new retail location, in the atrium, lauded architectural firm OMA has created an art installation: soaring towers comprised of LV trunks.
“Our installation uses iconic Louis Vuitton trunks in a playful display that intuitively and instantly communicates the Maison’s heritage and spirit of innovation,” Shohei Shigematsu, a partner at OMA, tells Highsnobiety.
“Conceived to fit the central atrium of the temporary store, the four trunk towers are part structural and part sculptural, familiar in materiality yet foreign in shape, height, and slenderness created by their distinctly stacked forms. Together, they become a spatial force that feels surreal yet rooted to Louis Vuitton’s origins.”
Surrounding Shigematsu's towering installation are four floors of retail encompassing all LV categories — from home decor to hard-sided trunks — as well as a library and a dedicated floor of private salons for high-status customers.
And if you work up an appetite while browsing this expansive space, the first Louis Vuitton restaurant in the United States and the first Louis Vuitton chocolatier in the United States, offering chocolate imported from Paris, are conveniently located inside the shop.
Located at 6 East 57th Street, Louis Vuitton’s temporary New York store marks a series of firsts for the Maison in America. If this is the scale of LV’s temporary outpost, it sets the tone for what’s to come in the renovation of its 5th Avenue flagship.
