ON A SUNNY SPRING MORNING, A TWOstory brick building on Gansevoort Street in downtown New York City was a hub of activity. Waiters dressed in white jackets with Nehru-style collars proffered silver trays of green juices, and a packed crowd admired the impeccably stitched leather bags and printed silk scarves on display. The occasion was the opening of a new Hermès store in the city’s (still) booming Meatpacking District, a historic neighborhood that throughout the early 20th century contained multiple slaughterhouses. The arrival of an Hermès boutique to this edgier enclave (compared to, say, Madison Avenue, where the brand’s flagship resides) might seem like a curious choice at first, but as Denis Montel—the managing and artistic director of RDAI Architecture and the store’s designer—puts it, “Hermès has so many faces.…
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ELLE DECOR (Digital) - 1 Issue, June 2019