Khaite flagship retailer designed as a "tribute to the cultural legacy of SoHo"

American trend model Khaite has opened its first flagship retailer in SoHo, New York Metropolis – a cement-trowelled and steel-lined inside with an evergreen tree planted into its store ground.
The shop was designed by Khaite’s founder and inventive director, Catherine Holstein and her husband New York-based architect, Griffin Frazen.
It occupies a Corinthian column-fronted constructing in SoHo, capped with Italianate cast-iron modillion cornices, designed by German architect Henry Fernbach in 1871.
Holstein and Frazen needed to encapsulate the cultural legacy of the SoHo location with the realm’s connection to the founding of the model.

“Each aspect of KHAITE is formed by New York, and we got down to make this house a tribute to the cultural legacy of SoHo,” mentioned Holstein.
“Once I moved to New York twenty years in the past, this block of Mercer was my entry level to the town, and SoHo is the place KHAITE was born. Our first design studio was simply down the road.”

Your complete 371 sq. metre floor ground of the shop was devoted to retail house whereas the constructing’s basement was reserved for back-of-house workings in addition to a non-public assembly space.
Holstein and Frazen’s method noticed the shop clad in city-characterising supplies akin to metal, glass, poured concrete, troweled cement and plaster, which carry an industrial and monolithic look to the house.

4 curving metal partition partitions meander by way of the size of the retail house and are used to hide and body Khaite’s ready-to-wear collections which might be displayed on curved show rails.
The 4 metal partitions are visually separated by a channel of sunshine from one in every of two skylights on the rear of the shop that was uncovered throughout its renovation.
A focal characteristic of the shop is an evergreen Bucida Buceras tree, which was named the Shady Woman and planted into the ground beneath the rear skylight.
As gentle enters and flows into the house from the skylights the tough and textural high quality of the cement-trowelled partitions is revealed.

“The design was conceived by way of materials – selecting the best supplies and dealing with them in the appropriate strategy to fulfill the programmatic necessities,” mentioned Frazen.
“We leaned into elemental qualities like pure gentle, preserving the dimensions and openness whereas creating intimate areas.”

“We embrace the change of supplies like metal and concrete simply as you’d leather-based and cashmere, honoring them by permitting them to put on in gracefully,” mentioned Frazen.
“Every bit has distinctive textures, and fairly than sharpening away or portray over them, we preserved imperfection.”

Three becoming rooms have been designed to distinction the brutalist particulars of the shop and have been blanketed in a deep crimson, fitted with plush crimson carpeting and heat lighting.
Minimal furnishings was positioned all through, akin to a Sing Sing chair by Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata that sits beside a twisted, low-lying shelf used to show the model’s equipment.

Earlier than opening to the general public, the shop was used because the setting for Khaite’s Autumn Winter 2023 present which was introduced in February.
Close by in SoHo, design company Aruliden accomplished a retailer inside for trend model Jonathan Simkhai that included cut-out shapes from Simkhai’s clothes into partitions and furnishings.
Design agency Crosby Studios teamed up with AR know-how firm Zero10 to create a pop-up retailer additionally in SoHo that enables individuals to strive on digital garments.