HERBERT LEVINE’S PERMANENT SHOWROOM
Client: Herbert Levine
Type: Retail
Services: Set design, Layout design, FF&E
Ph: évoque lab
Location: Massimo Bonini, Palazzo Borromeo D’Adda, Milano
THE CLIENT
Herbert Levine is an American luxury footwear maison founded in New York in 1948. Under Beth Levine’s creative direction, it redefined the twentieth-century woman’s shoe with sculptural, experimental designs worn by First Ladies and screen icons such as Marilyn Monroe. Today the brand returns, its history reinterpreted with sculptural refinement, cinematic glamour and surreal elegance.
THE CHALLENGE
For its Fashion Week presentation, the brand asked for an installation translating its world into the rooms of Palazzo Borromeo d’Adda, with two weeks from brief to opening and a rapid installation.
THE SOLUTION
Here too, the project starts from selection rather than new displays. Design and vintage pieces were chosen for their display capacity as much as for the character and history they bring, continuing the language of the temporary installation.
The centrepiece is Osvaldo Borsani’s E22 system for Tecno, whose slender metal uprights leave wooden shelves and volumes almost suspended. Within its grid, a painting by Agenore Fabbri becomes one of the modules: art and design share the same display system.
Around it, a 1940s Italian bar cabinet in wood, mirrored glass and parchment, a 1950s bookcase, a sideboard by Vittorio Dassi and a 1920s vitrine form a constellation of eras and materials. The shoes join the composition as collectible objects among collectible objects.
OUR ROLE
Research and selection of the pieces, spatial layout and installation. One month from brief to delivery.
RESULTS
The brand was very satisfied with the result: an interior that keeps expressing the values of its collection, at same time retro and fresh.
