Whew! It's been a busy few days for Colette. First, and perhaps most importantly, the French high-concept streetwear boutique reopened their Rue Saint-Honoré location after completing the Masamichi Katayama/Wonderwall designed renovations. Secondly, they gave the public a peek at their new collection for American mega-ultra-super retailer, Gap. Let's break all this down as quickly as possible, shall we?
Thankfully, the redo of Colette's headquarters was more subtle than expected. While were excited to see changes, we also feared some sort of bizarre retail disco wormhole on similar to the Billionaire Boys Club store in Soho (hey, these things happen). Instead, what we have here is a classed up Colette where the colorful product still takes center stage—mirrors, delicate tile work, and a restaurant you might actually want to visit even if you aren't shopping. The flip side of this coin is the Colette collection for their pop-up Gap store opening in September. Yes, the very words sound odd—like ordering salad nicoise in a McDonalds. But really, Gap has come quite a long way under the stewardship of Patrick Robinson and this is, afterall, Colette, so one would expect something of quality. And quality is what you get. The trench coat and sweatshirt-styled jacket designed by Moncler and Andre are handsome, and the other sundry goods are charming. But, in this case, quality does not equal excitement. Sure, there's a Gallic charm here and the little gewgaws are cute—but we feel absolutely no need to buy anything offered. Still, if the pop up shop opening on the 6th is to look anything like the newly restored homebase, we'll surely stop by.
Colette is located at 213 Rue Saint-Honoré, 33-1-5535-3399; www.colette.fr..