French heritage brand Louis Vuitton reopened its Milan flagship store early this spring during Milan’s annual design week, and the timing was perfect. The four-story store, redesigned by Elle Decor front-line architect Peter Marino, was immediately packed with shoppers, curious design enthusiasts, and fashion lovers.
Designed around a typical Milanese courtyard, the store features a staircase inspired by Milan’s famous Villa Necchi. The store houses counters for everything from fashion and fine jewelry to furniture and tableware, as well as two restaurants serving pasta and LV-monogrammed tiramisu.
Marino spent three years on an ambitious renovation of the Palazzo Taverna, built in 1835. Located on Via Montenapoleone, one of Milan’s most fashionable shopping streets, the building has been home to the Louis Vuitton flagship since 2011. He retained the neoclassical Ionic columns and timpani from the original architect, Ferdinando Albertolli, a renowned professor of design at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
But Marino doubled the size of the palazzo and left his mark on just about everything else. He was inspired by classic Milanese architecture: the casa di ringhiera, where apartments overlook a central open core. Meanwhile, the palazzo’s original entrance was glazed in, with a modern skylight, and transformed into a courtyard café.
The opening coincides with the launch of the Louis Vuitton Home collection, which expands on the brand’s existing Objets Nomades line and now includes a range of new furniture and lighting, as well as decorative items, textiles, tableware and games.
These include striking new seating by Argentinian designer Cristian Mohaded, a whimsical Studio Campana football table, and textiles based on patterns by French icon Charlotte Perriand.
The house’s monogrammed trunks have been virtually repurposed to serve as vases, china cabinets, and even roulette tables.
“What would a Louis Vuitton home look like?” asks French designer Patrick Jouin, who is charged with answering the question. His creations are elegant and joyful—from a curvaceous sectional sofa that seats a dozen people to leather armchairs that are secured like suitcases with golden padlocks.
Milanese landscape architect Marco Bay, who worked with Marino on the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, was asked to add greenery to the space. His custom zinc planters, filled with asparagus and ferns, extend beyond the courtyard’s railings.
One room on the fourth-floor residential level has a design that’s decidedly not Italian: This Art Nouveau-style space, with its pistachio-colored walls and plaster vines, was inspired by the historic home of the Louis Vuitton family in Asnieres-sur-Seine, France.
Marino also incorporated contemporary art by Carla Accordi, Farhad Moshiri, Peter Halley and others. On the ground floor, a large painting of the Pink Panther by American artist Katherine Bernhardt towers over the formal restaurant, DaV, designed by Da Vittorio Louis Vuitton.
“Louis Vuitton is fun, stylish and very beautiful,” Marino said. “I want everyone who comes to the store to feel that way.”