Alexandra Golovanoff opens new pop-up

One new concept store winning plenty of attention in Paris is the latest pop-up from Alexandra Golovanoff, the French designer and fashion TV host.

Her latest store opened this month on Rue Saint-Honoré, across the street from the former Colette, with a very novel retail format, one that best expresses Golovanoff’s understated Parisian cool.

Located inside the boutique of L' Exemplaire, at 334 Rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement, which Golovanoff has taken over for the rest of this year, is her key collection - fine cashmere knits, with matching fabric buttons, done pretty but practical hues of mustard, Imperial Roman purple, sky blue and rose.

What’s intriguing about the new space is that customers can now match her knitwear with a great selection of vintage jeans, principally Levi’s hand-picked by the designer herself. Along with a natty array of costume jewelry and her personal favorite shoes and sneakers from Pierre Hardy, the indie shoe designer, who creates the accessories for Hermès.

“From social media, I get asked all the time: which jeans should I wear with your pullovers? Which necklaces? Which shampoo? Which décor? So I thought, why not answer their question with a mix like this?” explains Golovanoff, who has some 90,000 Instagram followers.

It helps that there is not too much pain at the cash register. Prices vary from a fine-gauge sweater at €370 to heavier versions at €495. Vintage Levi’s are priced at around €130, while pearl, gold or enamel earrings retail for €150 and up.

The swish, brightly lit boutique also offers some interesting mid-century modernist furniture, though the bedrock is really her cashmeres, which are hand-made in Mauritius, the Indian Ocean island nation which has a long knitwear tradition, and quality craftspeople.

Golovanoff, who has a cult following in France thanks to her TV show La mode la mode, opened her first store on the Left Bank on Rue de Varenne in September 2019. Internationally, she retails in over 40 sales points, while her own e-commerce business, which opened four days before France went into lockdown last March, now rivals her own retail turnover.

“It’s a different customer on this side of the Seine. The Left Bank is more French and more conservative. Here it’s more international, younger and more twisted, which I like!” says the blonde mum of two teenagers.

Alexandra Golovanoff opens new pop-up

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