LVMH’s Archive Sale, Katie Grand’s Prize, Sandra Choi’s Claridge’s Vision
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OUT OF THE ARCHIVES: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has launched Heristoria, a platform of archival and historical pieces.
The platform aims to find treasures within the company’s maisons and launch special sales of the unique items, each paired with experiences and services.
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“Heristoria reflects our passion for beautiful stories. Only a group like LVMH has the capacity to bring such a diversity of iconic heritage items under one umbrella; objects that are the ongoing expression of our maisons’ know-how,” said LVMH group managing director Toni Belloni.
The platform is grouped by decade, and tells a story of the era’s ethos and aesthetic, as well as history from each piece.
The first release of items, titled “Preface” to launch the concept, brings together 29 pieces from 21 maisons from across their holdings in fashion, leather goods, fragrance, watches and jewelry, and wine and spirits. A Moynat trunk from the 1920s, restored but left with the original owner’s personal red and white stripe motif, is on offer for 9,000 euros, while a visit to Château d’Yquem accompanies a trio of bottles from the winery for 840 euros.
Among the fashion items are a restored Givenchy couture dress from the spring 1963 collection, worn by Audrey Hepburn. A visit to the brand’s private maison for tailoring accompanies the black shift with a back bow, while a circa 1976 Concorde flight attendant uniform designed by Jean Patou is also available.
A velvet wrap coat from Kenzo Takada’s first collection in 1987 is on offer, accompanied by a visit to the brand’s workshops.
All items are one-of-a-kind and the site will be replenished as objects are unearthed, but won’t have scheduled “drops.” Not to be confused with resale, each piece is pulled from the maisons’ internal archives, and the platform does not offer peer-to-peer or strictly “secondhand” sales.
It’s part of the company’s drive to incorporate new ideas and innovation through its Disrupt, Act, Risk to Be an Entrepreneur, or DARE, initiative and designed to focus on the company’s history and craftsmanship.
The trio of Gérosine Henriot, Laurence Mayer and Nicolas Forge grew the idea through the DARE program, and are credited as cofounders of the platform. Forge was also key in creating the company’s Nona Source, LVMH’s deadstock textiles resale platform sustainability initiative. — RHONDA RICHFORD
GRAND PRIZE: Katie Grand will take home the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator at The Fashion Awards in London, which take place Dec. 5 at Royal Albert Hall.
The British Fashion Council, which hands out the awards, said Grand is being honored “for her incredible contribution to culture, art and fashion, which has made her one of the most exciting creative visionaries of our time.”
A stylist and creative consultant, Grand has worked on shows and campaigns for brands including Prada, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, Bottega Veneta, Matty Bovan and Tomo Koizumi.
In the early part of her career she was fashion director of Dazed and The Face and the launch editor of Another. She has also launched three other fashion magazines — Perfect, Love and Pop. Since 2020 she has worked with Sarabande, the emerging artists foundation established by Lee Alexander McQueen.
Grand has also been credited with the discovery and rise of industry figures including Cara Delevingne, Mert & Marcus, Kendall Jenner and Alasdair McLellan.
“Always ahead of the curve, Katie’s work as a stylist and creative consultant has influenced trends and supported the discovery of fresh, new talent,” said Caroline Rush, chief executive officer of the BFC.
Grand said the legacy that “Issy Blow left behind, and everything she brought to fashion, has always been a massive inspiration to me.”
Previous winners of the award include IB Kamara, Sam McKnight, Mert & Marcus and Pat McGrath.
The Fashion Awards raise funds for the BFC Foundation, a charity that supports the future growth and success of the British fashion industry by focusing on talent, education, grant-giving and business mentoring, and aim to improve equality and opportunity in the industry.
The BFC said that in the financial year 2021-22, it remitted more than 1.3 million pounds in funds to designers and students. — SAMANTHA CONTI
CHOI DOES CLARIDGE’S: It’s a Jimmy Choo Christmas.
The luxury accessories brand’s creative director Sandra Choi has unveiled her Christmas tree design for London’s Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair.
The brightest and most animated in the hotel’s history, the tree is a minimal geometric shape lit by white lights with a double-knotted neon pink bow.
“The bow as a symbol of bringing things together and this united ceremony is what I wanted to portray,” Choi told WWD on the morning of the tree’s big unveiling.
“The tree itself was a symbol to the core of our brand because what does Jimmy Choo mean? Glamour always comes like a boomerang,” she added. Glamour is a running motif in the brand’s winter 2022 campaign shot at the famous hotel, starring Iris Law, Mica Argaňaraz and Stan Taylor, photographed by Angelo Pennetta.
The tree has been given the name of The Diamond, a nod to the brand’s regalia-like accessories. The designer wanted to translate the allure of Jimmy Choo’s through light in collaboration with set designer Simon Costin who worked on the tree that stands more than five meters tall and took more than 350 hours to construct.
“We chatted and we dissected what it means to use light as a whole idea into the future. It’s about stepping inside the jaw, which I talk about often. Claridge’s is a place of heritage, it’s iconic and for us at Jimmy Choo, we needed to bring that glamour that Claridge’s has,” Choi said.
Simplicity and upcycling were at the forefront of Choi and Costin’s ideation when they met to plan the project.
“We produce a lot of stuff and Christmas is one of those times where you’re overloaded with things to bring the festivities alive, but we wanted to minimize the stuff element and have the ability to upcycle certain parts of the tree. We haven’t got there yet, but it’s something we discussed last night. What do we do with the materials and what do they mean to us?” said Choi, who will be hosting a cocktail party at the hotel on Wednesday evening to celebrate the tree commission.
Christmas for Choi is all about treating others. Her most memorable memory of the holiday is from 2019 when her family took a trip to Lapland in Finland, she said.
“We packed our bags, went to the cold and had a white Christmas. It was incredibly magical because it’s not about stuff, but rather just being together,” said Choi, who will be celebrating Christmas with her sister in Wales this year.
“I have volunteered my sister to treat me,” she said, jokingly.
Choi has already started forward planning for 2023, and hinted at a mentoring program in the works.
“I’m really into seeing what the new generation is looking at. I’ve got teams of people I work with and I always chat to them about what they see and how they feel. I’ve been in this brand for so long, I’ve seen it all, but to actually see it from another lens is very important,” she said.
Choi hinted at another project set for spring 2023 that she describes as a “nostalgic childhood project that is really artful, creative and feminine at the same time.” — HIKMAT MOHAMMED
DESIGNING SERPENTINE: The Lebanese-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh is the next designer of the Serpentine Pavilion in London, which will be all about eating, socializing — and sustainability.
Ghotmeh’s pavilion, a social space in-the-round, will be unveiled at Serpentine South in June. It will remain on site until October, and during Frieze week, which has become a magnet for fashion designers keen to align themselves with the world of fine art.
Ghotmeh’s eponymous firm develops projects at the crossroads of architecture, art and design. She describes her approach as 360-degree, and said it involves in-depth research on location history, typology of the place, materials, resources and users’ habits.
Her pavilion design is called “À table,” which means “come to the table.” It will be the Serpentine’s 22nd pavilion, and is aligned with the gallery’s ongoing theme of “archaeology of the future.”
The pavilion’s in-the-round layout is meant to allude to a sense of unity, with a seating formation that invites social interaction. The structure has been inspired by nature and is meant to echo the grounds and canopies of the trees in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, where the Serpentine galleries are located.
“’À table’ is an invitation to dwell together, in the same space and around the same table. It is an encouragement to enter into a dialogue, to convene and to think about how we could reinstate and reestablish our relationship to nature and the Earth. As a Mediterranean woman, born and raised in Beirut, and living in Paris, I feel a deep belonging to our ground, to what it contains, and to what it embraces,” the architect said.
She added that the atmosphere is “reminiscent of toguna huts of the Dogon people in Mali, West Africa, designed to bring all members of a community together in discussion. Here we can eat, work, play, meet, talk, rethink and decide.”
The structure will be built with bio-sourced and low-carbon materials, designed to minimize its environmental impact, in line with Serpentine’s sustainability policy. Materials include sustainably sourced timber ribs that will be arranged to support a suspended, pleated roof.
The structure is meant to endure, and can be disassembled and reassembled.
Next summer, the pavilion will serve as a platform for Serpentine’s program, including live encounters in music, poetry, spoken word and dance. It will also host the Serpentine’s Education and Civic activations. — S.C.
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