Harvest

Schemata Architects raises the stock. Es Devlin helps Louis Vuitton expand its fandom. Bonsoir Paris hypnotizes for Hermès. Formafantasma struts its stuff on the catwalk. Olafur Eliasson gets retrospective. ZCD Architects changes it up for Hussein Chalayan. It’s the pick of the crop from the worlds of art and design.

Watch Bureau Betak’s floral affair blossom to life with the digital magazine

In Full Bloom

Bureau Betak raises the whimsy quotient for Dior’s Paris Fashion Week show

PARIS — We’re all familiar with the green wall. Now Alexandre de Betak of Bureau Betak has given us the violet hill. De Betak, scenographer for innovators from Rodarte to Viktor & Rolf, brought spring to autumnal Paris when he was tapped by the House of Dior to produce the show for its S/S 2016 ready-to-wear women’s collection.

Dior introduced its A/W 2014 couture line against a canvas of 150,000 orchids; this season’s show was another floral extravaganza, a lavish gesture to mark the end of Raf Simons’ successful stint as creative director of womenswear at Dior. To match Simons’ diaphanous designs in organza and cotton voile, De Betak raised a hillock of delphiniums over the Cour Carrée du Louvre.

Inside its generous hollow, the manmade mound became a white cavern that, though windowless and opulent in scale, had the lightness of a garden gazebo. De Betak sowed additional flowers on a smaller slope raised against one interior wall interrupted by a white doorway through which models appeared to form two défilés. Will Paris Fashion Week’s most aromatic show inspire Dior’s next fragrance? — SM

bureaubetak.com

Space Invader

Michael Najjar takes guests at the Kameha Grand Zurich Hotel on an intergalactic voyage

ZURICH — Ever since British fashion designer Christopher Kane launched his galaxy-print designs five years ago, many in the industry have been engrossed by outer space. What’s been a trend, however, is becoming an invasion. Proof of the phenomenon is the work of German artist Michael Najjar, who was commissioned to design a Space Suite for the Kameha Grand Zurich Hotel. Those familiar with Najjar’s life and work know that he is well acquainted with the conditions of extraterrestrial existence: the Berlin-based artist has been training to prepare for his role as one of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Pioneer Astronauts. The expedition will make him the first contemporary artist to set foot in outer space.

Cloud of Coats

Schemata Architects literally elevates the merchandise for sportswear brand Descente

TOKYO — Schemata Architects has unveiled a simple yet strategic concept for Descente Blanc, a new line of apparel from one of Japan’s leading sportswear manufacturers. Descente is defined by its urban aesthetic – a mix of cutting-edge versatility and sophistication that architect Jo Nagasaka incorporated into the store’s spatial identity. Currently, outlets can be found in three Japanese locations: Osaka, Daikanyama (Tokyo) and Fukuoka.

Nagasaka utilized existing materials from the surrounding environment, including timber, which he moved from the exterior into the Tokyo store. Clothing hangs from the ceiling of the raw industrial space on long tubular rails that can be raised and lowered mechanically. These racks display multiple copies of one design, an apparent reference to mass production. The factory feel is reinforced by the prevalence of steel, bare surfaces and neon lighting. Furniture, arranged as if in a gallery setting, injects a thoughtful note that can be seen as a nod – more romantic than critical – to industrial production.

‘We focused on redesigning the service process – the routine of shop staff taking items from the stockroom and delivering them to a customer,’ says Nagasaka. Storage space integrated into the ceiling, however, compels staff in search of products to move vertically instead of horizontally. — JP

schemata.jp

The Hang of It

Hussein Chalayan’s London boutique ushers shoppers into a different dimension

LONDON — Cypriot fashion designer Hussein Chalayan is known for creating the extraordinary by taking something banal (a coffee table) and turning it into something equally banal (a skirt) using a less-than-banal gesture (telescopic levitation). Most recently, he came up with shirtdresses that dissolve under a shower of water to reveal eveningwear beneath. We can only hope that Chalayan will one day come up with an entire collection that mutates into, say, a shop featuring clothes from that collection. Until then, London’s ZCD Architects are distilling physical space for him.

The outfit’s latest boutique, which in true Chalayan fashion can be converted from store to event venue, opened this autumn on London’s Bourdon Street; described by ZCD as a ‘shop-within-a-shop’, the store is defined by a black steel frame. The metal structure both preserves and reshapes the space, while also serving as a hanging rack. Inside are only two other objects: a black boat hullcum-bench that functions as seating, display unit or dinner table; and a black-lacquered cash counter in which a digital timer marks the passage of time without telling the precise day or hour. A ‘threshold zone’ at the entrance marked by jet-black floor tiles signals the transition from the street into another territory.

Minimal finishes in black and white reinforce the boundaries of the retail floor while providing a graphical yet discreet backdrop. ZCD didn’t want the interior ‘to wrestle with’ its content for the visitors’ attention. Instead of being mano a mano, the two fit hand in glove. — SM

zcdarchitects.co.uk