MILAN – The Italian luxury company in the Loro Piana style is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and the opening of its Los Angeles flagship store on Rodeo Drive is the crowning achievement.
The store is a strong statement for Loro Piana and was envisioned by CEO Damien Bertrand from day one.
“Historically, Loro Piana has had a very strong business on the East Coast. My second visit in my role with the company was to the United States because that market is… I knew there was great potential,” Beltran said in an exclusive interview.
The executive joined Loro Piana from Dior in November 2021 and traveled to Los Angeles in January 2022 to “walk down Rodeo Drive with the team” and recall identifying the space. “This is it. I found it by walking around and going to stores. This is what Mr. Arnault (chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the parent company of Loro Piana) always does. I think it’s very important to be in the field as a CEO, to be in the office and see how the clients and the market evolve. I don’t know what’s happening.”
Bertrand believes in the strength of Rodeo Drive, which previously had a small store elsewhere on the street, but the new flagship store is nearly four times the size, with 7,776 square feet of retail space. It’s also centrally located on the same street as Dior and Gucci, catering to locals such as Zendaya, Sofia Richie, Jeff Bezos, Leonardo DiCaprio and Rebecca, who have helped create the brand’s Extra Pocket bags. It features a VIP floor and terrace. A stealth wealth declaration of flats, white-soled shoes, and sustainable red carpet suits.
Loro Piana has 23 stores in the United States and is excited about California’s potential, opening one in Palo Alto in March 2023 and one in Montecito at the end of August. The Rodeo Drive flagship was quietly announced at the end of July, but the official opening will take place on Thursday. It will be celebrated with a cocktail party and dinner with scheduled guests including “Succession” scion Jeremy Strong, Andrew Garfield, Will Arnett and Sarah Paulson.
“We carefully mapped out where we wanted to be and where we felt the community was,” Bertrand explained.
In line with LVMH policy, Mr. Bertrand could not reveal the revenue generated in North America, but said Loro Piana had doubled its business in the region in the past three years.
The store’s façade takes inspiration from the soft, undulating texture of Loro Piana fabrics and features glazed ceramic tiles made by a Tuscan company based in the Impruneta district near Florence. Impressive. Tiles in different shades of the brand’s signature Kummer color change depending on the light.
“I love this façade and its shimmering effect, and I see so many people walking past and touching the tiles. This alone allowed us to achieve something important for us. Because at Loro Piana we value texture and design. We want to give our customers the best experience,” said Bertrand, emphasizing the craftsmanship required.
He explained that glazed tiles were used for the first time at the Loro Piana store in Dubai Mall two years ago, to a different effect. “That was an enclosed space, but here it’s outdoors, so we have to keep it aesthetically pleasing and, of course, make sure it’s very safe.”
Designed in warm tones by Loro Piana’s in-house team, the interior features lots of oak and the brand’s repeating Carabottino wood details, silk carpets, raffia, Venini chandeliers, and silk wall coverings. is used. The furniture is made from fabrics from Loro Piana Interiors.
The three floors are connected by an elevator and staircase and feature artwork by Sheila Hicks, her “soft stones,” tactile sculptures of three-dimensional discs woven from linen thread and other materials.
The women’s collection, including leather goods and shoes, is sold on the first floor. Menswear is located on the second floor, with a design loosely inspired by the closet of Sergio Loro Piana, who helped found the family business with his brother Pier Luigi. There is a shoe room and a pantalonaio, an open display of pants from the early Loro Piana boutiques.
“This space is like my own dressing room, so we wanted to bring it back,” a Pantalonaio executive said, adding that the leather goods category has expanded and is “doing really well.” There is also a cabinet for exotic leather bags.
An early Loro Piana advertisement framed on the wall depicts Fred Astaire prancing around in Tasmanian fabric pants, linking the brand’s history in luxury fabrics to Old Hollywood.
The third-floor VIP room is reserved for customers who want private appointments, and “I hear they spend quite a bit of time there,” Bertrand said with a smile. The brand also plans to dress up celebrities from the space.
Loro Piana first entered the United States in the 1960s as a textile exporter, but in 1994 it opened a showroom and office space in a townhouse on New York’s 61st Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue, and gradually expanded its clothing business. It was the brand’s first retail presence, Bertrand recalls. “The ties with the United States are very strong,” he said, as the first official store would open four years later on Via Montenapoleone in Milan. The store opened on Madison Avenue in 2011.
“We believe there is a strong community of customers or potential customers in the U.S., and that’s how we view the market.Certainly there’s still an opportunity in California, and there’s also an opportunity in Arizona, for example. I think there is, and that’s where Loro Piana should be, but we’ll move forward in stages when it makes sense and we’re ready,” Beltran said.
To further develop its North American market, Loro Piana will open a store in Toronto at Bloor Street and Yorkdale Mall in mid-October.
To commemorate this anniversary, Loro Piana is also launching the book Master of Fibers, published by Assuline and written by Nicholas Foulkes, which shares the brand’s most important milestones. The book will be available for purchase from November 21 in select Loro Piana and Assuline stores around the world, as well as the latter’s e-store. The book will be pre-sold in the US at the Rodeo Drive flagship event. In the UK, it will be released in conjunction with Loro Piana’s acquisition of Harrods starting November 7th.
The book has two versions and took almost three years to complete. “We wanted to do something really special, something that tells the story of the Loro Piana family, six generations of it, including some exclusive photographs,” said Bertrand. Ta.
The book “Master of Fiber” by Loro Piana.
The 196-page volume features 150 illustrations, housed in a luxurious clamshell case and covered in Loro Piana Terra Sergio fabric made from cotton and linen. Retailing at €1,200, it is part of Assouline’s Ultimate Collection, hand-bound using traditional techniques and hand-applied with color plates on art-quality paper. For top customers, there is also a limited edition covered in cashfir fabric.
“Obviously, for me, this is more than just a book, because it’s an object of desire, an object of luxury, the ultimate luxury book. We did it in a very Loro Piana way. ” says Bertrand, whose passion for the brand is evident and who admits to being “an obsessive about the details.”
“It was a great opportunity for me and the team to go back into the archives and talk about our excellence and our transformation journey, and I think that’s very important. “We wanted this book to be very tactile, because everything and even some of the images are tactile,” he says, holding a bookmark with the brand’s crest in his hand. He said. “There are a lot of details that are invisible but are very important.”
– Contributed by Booth Moore in Los Angeles
