Fashion designer Stéphane Verdino has just opened his first boutique – at 10 rue Charlot, Paris 3, in the heart of the lively Marais area. It was laid out by scenographer Emilie Bonaventure of be-attitude, extending collaboration that began in 2007 for furniture design and trade fair sets. The duo got together again to do this 50-square-metre space, which gives durable form to their association.
The set presenting the creator’s ultra-contemporary accessories is sober, linear and radical. Bags and shoes evolve in a graphic decor of black and white volumes, with a changing signature colour coming in to differentiate each season. This autumn is blue, the matrix colour of Verdino’s AH09-10 collection currently on display.
Light is used as matter in the space planning and fit-out furniture created by Emilie Bonaventure. It is a vector of emotion and of crossovers in design. One example of this is a ‘light box’ six metres long to echo the rectangle studded with four rivets that is Stéphane Verdino’s signature.
In restructuring the existing volumes, Emilie Bonaventure has re-phased panoramic vision of space by using outsize black surfaces. Like Verdino’s creations, the space is graphic and architectural, with extreme attention given to details even when they are barely visible. The fit-out is black in white space and evolves is such a way that the label’s two code colours are constantly juxtaposed, touching and responding. Fitting cubicles and large tables stamped with the yin-yang symbol express the masculine-feminine overlap of the designer’s unisex creations. The only signage inside the boutique are letters of light set into the wall, which spell his name.
Container and content match, relate and interact in this composition, as they should. No doubt the result has something to do with the fact that the scenographer also carries and collects Stéphane Verdino bags.
This four-handed piece is not the first by this duo and will by no means be the last, what with an up-and-coming flagship comprising boutique, showroom and office, sets for trade fairs, and a spate of projects on the international scene.