Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!
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TASTEMAKER dream weaver LANVIN���S ALBER ELBAZ TALKS ABOUT REINTERPRETING MODERNITY AND LUXURY IN THE STORIED LABEL���S NEWLY OPENED OAK STREET BOUTIQUE. BY LAURIE BROOKINS H people on the floor who sell our clothes and the clients who buy our clothes. I love meeting all these different men and women���younger, older, skinny, not so skinny. They teach me so much about what I do every day.��� Elbaz thrives on the notion of evolution, and Lanvin���s 5,320-square-foot Chicago boutique is a great example. Chief among the reasons he couldn���t venture out and explore the city was the sudden realization that he simply didn���t like how austere the about-to-open boutique was looking. ���I changed almost everything about the store during the three-quarters of the day I was there,��� he recalls. ���Everything seemed too perfect, too manicured, and all of a sudden that just seemed to be the antithesis of what we should do.��� Thus the flurry began, as Elbaz transformed the four-story townhouse, hanging bags where clothes were once displayed, pulling shoe boxes in Lanvin���s signature pale blue out of the stockroom and stacking them about the shoe salon, mixing the positions of mannequins so they didn���t seem like soldiers in precision, and filling one table with just a few too many perfume bottles. ���I think what was in my mind was that I wanted a bit of a mess,��� he says. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF LANVIN e spent less than 24 hours in December at his new Oak Street boutique, but Alber Elbaz already knows Chicago is a city that could capture his heart. ���The energy was very good,��� Elbaz notes. ���I���m very much an emotional person, and I feel when a place is good for me or not, and Chicago felt just right. Unfortunately, I arrived in the afternoon, spent the whole day in the store, went back to my room and ordered Chinese food, and was back at the airport the next morning. But already I knew, I felt something in the beautiful architecture, how warm and friendly everyone was. I would love to spend more time there.��� As artistic director of Lanvin, the Paris-based house he has made white hot since coming on board in 2001, Elbaz has grown accustomed to the whirlwind pace, though he���s quick to admit he doesn���t prefer it���that he would much rather indulge in a pause here or there. ���But it���s like I have 20 children, and they all want my attention,��� he says of the 35 Lanvin boutiques around the globe (Chicago, which opened its doors in January, is the house���s sixth US location). ���I love traveling for work, though, because it���s my best chance to meet the 88 MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 088-089_MA_SS_StyleSetter_Spring13.indd 88 2/11/13 3:51 PM