Alice in Wonderland on the Champs Elysees

During my most recent trip to Paris this past May, I stopped into the Louis Vuitton flagship store on the famed Champs-Elysees.  I first learned of the store's re-design through Veronique Vienne's article in the March 2006 issue of Metropolis Magazine entitled  "East Meets West on the Champs-Elsyees."

When I first read Vienne's article I was in my retail design studio class at UCLA and was struggling to come up with a "big idea" (not to be confused with a concept -- but I'll get on my soap-box about that in another post).  The article provided me with my "A-ha!" moment and voila! "Le Beau Monde" was born.

But I digress, back to the store.  The store is 16,000 square feet and according to Vienne, "a Parisian woman might mistake it for a gallerie marchande -- a shopping arcade."  The design, by architect Eric Carlson and interior designer Peter Marino, differs vastly from the usual concept of a French luxury store.