MARNI ARK – CHRISTMAS CHARITY PROJECT 2018

Green!

Marni in Florence, the Big Apple, and Paris

The spring-summer 2019 by Marni Bambino

The first Marni boutique in Florence

Retail expansion for Marni with a new store in Florence, the third in Italy after Milan and Rome, and other international openings

The new Marni retail space in Florence is located in the exclusive Via Roma on the ground floor of an historic building overlooking the iconic Piazza della Repubblica. The interior design concept is developed around the use of refined precious materials and defined geometric shapes, which are characteristic  features of all the Marni stores across the world. The large double-height windows are dominated by two concave illuminated sculptural elements that introduce the theme of the circle, a distinctive feature of the store’s architecture. The retail area comprises of three different rooms displaying a careful selection of all women’s collections. Visitors are first welcomed in an area dedicated to bags and small leather goods, then in a space reserved for ready-to-wear and finally in an intimate corner focused on footwear. The contrast of materials is the common thread that runs through the design concept of the store in Florence: raw cement as the  material of choice for the shelves and the floor, enriched by circular inserts of white marble and carpet. The lighting of the ready-to-wear room is provided by an elliptical skylight, defined by a bright shade of red that is also used in the graphic inserts on the floor. The iconic wave shaped steel rails, which characterize all the Marni boutiques, open up into two large petals, which extend up to the window and create brilliant display opportunities. The colour palette ranges from full colours to a warm subtle hue of cream and stronger shades of dark red, all the way to the delicate periwinkle nuance that dominates the footwear area. The flagship store in Florence is the first step of an ambitious retail expansion programme that includes new stores in Rome, New York and Paris to be opened throughout the course of 2018. Each new store opening will be celebrated with the creation of a different animal sculpture specific to each city, available for purchase exclusively and only for a limited period of time in each specific boutique. Handmade in papier-mache and beads over the course of four days by a community of women in Villanueva, Colombia, these artefacts are real unique pieces. A hen in four different colours is the mascotte of the store in Florence. It will also feature in ‘Wandering in Florence’, a short film by Matt Blease, the first of the four artists commissioned by Marni to tell the story of a journey between Europe and the United States through a series of illustrations and animations.

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