Balenciaga opens pop-up in Saint-Tropez

By

SOPHIE LANDI

Published
Jun 10, 2022

The luxury fashion house is opening its first store in Saint-Tropez on June 2, part of a plan announced last September to renovate a number of stores worldwide. 

The interior and restored façade of the boutique reflect the brand’s “Raw Architecture concept”.

“This new design direction reacts to a site’s existing structures, exposing inner workings and accumulated histories, leaving surfaces intentionally raw. The resulting stores inherently require fewer virgin materials,”  said the brand in a statement. 

Surrounded by houses with warm and soothing colors, the label has developed architecture that blends with the charm of this French coastal town. The store has a warm-colored stucco exterior with a glass entryway, and large windows marked with its white logo. 

In the interior, one can admire a large curtain made from upcycled Balenciaga T-shirts. The Mexican artist Pia Camil created it to bring more warm tones into the greyscale boutique. 

Offering women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, shoes, bags, and accessories, Balenciaga invites visitors to dive into an industrial environment with its industrial lighting, bare appliances, concrete floor and walls, stained and damaged grey velvet curtain on the walls. 

Suspending the space in a ‘state of progress,’ the brand managed to create aged patinas on metal shelves and counters, concrete slabs and bricks, pipe-like racks, and LED-lined vitrines. 

“As well as effecting the new architectural concept, New Balenciaga stores and renovations aim to reach the highest standards in sustainable practices,” added the brand.