Tory Burch and Humberto Leon have collaborated on a new Tory Burch concept store in Los Angeles, opening January 22.
The boutique’s façade and interior feature the work of German photographer Walter Schels, whose animal portraits appear in Tory’s Resort 2024 collection. A large-scale game of cat and mouse unfolds along Melrose Avenue, with Schels’s portrait of a mouse repeating on the outside walls and a cat, mid-meow, filling the interior space.
Tory discovered Schels’s work years ago and was immediately drawn to his animal portraits. “There’s a human element to Walter’s photographs, in the way he looks at the animals and they in turn look back,” she says. “He gives animals the same respect as humans, highlighting their unique personalities and emotions.”
A shag carpet covers the floors, displays, and structural beams, designed to mimic a cat tower. Humberto also commissioned artist Aranza Garcia of Chuch Estudio in Merida, Mexico, to create a series of pink ceramic seats, which he positioned throughout the space in clusters of nine. Key items from the collection — including the Pierced mule, the Lee Radziwill Double Bag, and the new Kira Diamond Quilt Shoulder Bag — are displayed on the seats or nestled into shag-covered shelves and benches.
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That playfulness is echoed in Humberto’s approach to merchandising the collection. “We’re proposing different ways of wearing and styling clothing, making everything less precious, mixing runway with, for example, fleece,” he says. “In your closet, everything is equal. Your concert T-shirt you got when you were 18 is as valuable as the latest runway piece.”
“I have long admired Humberto’s creativity,” says Tory, who met Humberto in the early 2000s when he launched Opening Ceremony with co-founder Carol Lim. “I wanted him to feel free to experiment and bring his own point of view to the space, the photography, and the collection. I like the tension of collaborating with someone as creative as he is.”
The boutique will also carry the first drop of Tory’s Spring 2024 collection, including the Hoop dress, goddess dress, and Pierced wedge. Tory and Humberto have designed a special Melrose capsule collection of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and totes with abstract Schels portraits of the cat and bunny.
The boutique will be open through the end of the year at 8483 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles while the Tory Burch flagship on Rodeo Drive is renovated.
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