On a hot day this past June, the designer Simon Porte Jacquemus held his A/W 2024 runway show at Casa Malaparte, the modernist Adalberto Libera-designed home on the Italian island of Capri. Its terracotta-hued rooftop – immortalised in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 movie Contempt – served as the show’s runway, the collection itself a vision of the sensual Meditteranean glamour that has infused the Parisian label since its founding 15 years ago. It is an aesthetic deeply rooted in the Jacquemus psyche: the designer was born and raised in Provence, the idyllic, sun-soaked locale serving as the designer’s lodestar (perhaps his most memorable runway show was held in an undulating Provençal lavender field).
Now, Jacquemus brings the warm glow of a Mediterranean summer to his latest opening: a serene new flagship store on London’s New Bond Street with interiors designed in collaboration with OMA (opening today, 15 November 2024). Deemed ‘The London Boutique’, and following a recent opening in New York, the four-floor, 332 sq m store takes over a former art gallery on the luxury shopping street.
Chris van Duijn, the OMA partner who led the project, tells Wallpaper* that the desire was to ‘evoke the atmosphere of the Mediterranean within the context of a traditional, Victorian-style home’. As such, those entering through the store’s neoclassical façade – complete with a bas-relief frieze by the Scottish sculptor Alexander Stoddart – will be greeted by beige stone floors (evocative of Mediterranean paving), stucco walls and twisting, wrought-iron railings.
Wallpaper* tour: Jacquemus’ New Bond Street store, London
‘The design concept involves a “stacking” of shapes, with straight lines, an open plan and a wide window on the ground floor that transitions into more fluid, curved walls, and intimate settings on the upper levels,’ explains Van Duijn of the store’s interiors. A Portland stone staircase links the various levels – with dedicated menswear and womenswear floors – while a private VIP salon, designed to feel ‘cocooning’, is accessed through a separate entranceway. ‘The space is unified by hand-applied textured stucco and a neutral colour palette, creating a cohesive atmosphere throughout,’ he continues, noting that more vivid accents of yellow in the furnishings evoke the bold hues of Jacquemus’ collections.
The store also serves as a gallery-like space for Jacquemus to display his growing collection of art and play curator, something increasingly popular within luxury retail design (across the road, Gucci’s New Bond Street store is also housed in a former gallery and has a regular rotation of contemporary art, as does Casa Loewe, while The Row’s nearby Mount Street store sees shoppers greeted by a James Turrell orb). Close to 50 works by art and design icons populate the space, including a still life by Wolfgang Tillmans, a Raoul Dufy nude and Astier de Villatte ceramics, alongside loans of work by Henry Moore, John Maclauchlan and French art deco designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann.
‘I feel extremely proud to be able, independently, to have open boutiques in Paris, Saint Tropez, Courchevel, Dubai, New-York and now London,’ Jacquemus tells Wallpaper*. ‘Together with OMA, we designed the space to recreate a home, with a south of France feeling. The materials, artworks and furniture were carefully chosen from my favourite merchants and curators and some from my favourite galleries in London. It was important for me to recreate a comfortable and welcoming space in London, where the customers can feel at home in the middle of New Bond Street.’
Jacquemus ‘The London Boutique’ is open now at 33 New Bond Street, London.
