Greene Street—especially the block between Spring and Broome Streets—is turning into Soho’s latest clout corridor, enticing the same coterie of skateboarders, fashion purists, and rosé-swilling twenty- and thirty-somethings who treat Howard Street like a nightclub. Aspiring hypebeasts line up outside of Amiri and Saint Laurent, galeristas flock to Loewe, and the scent of marijuana hangs in the air like a happy little cloud. The shoppers make up one of New York’s best streetstyle fashion shows.
Joining the fray is Ferragamo, which opens the doors of a new concept store on Friday, June 24th at 63 Greene Street. As the house awaits the vision of rising design star Maximilian Davis, who was appointed creative director in March and will release his first collection in September during Milan Fashion Week, North America CEO Daniella Vitale has envisioned the new space as a temple to fashion as entertainment, making the web 3.0 bonanza that has captured much of the industry’s attention the anchor of the store.
“We are in the entertainment business,” Vitale said yesterday, while giving Harper’s Bazaar a tour of the periwinkle-painted room. “We want the people who visit our store to be entertained.”
On offer for those seeking fashionable amusement: a glitzy silver NFT booth, designed in collaboration with the multidisciplinary design studio DE-YAN, where visitors can create their own NFT for free. (I created a vibey vaporwave image of pastels and floating Ferragamo logos. It took all of five minutes–who knew art history could happen so fast!) The house worked with the digital artist SHXPIR (pronounced, um, “Shakespeare”) to create the imagery, and the creator also added his imagery to a limited edition selection of T-shirts and hoodies, the proceeds of which will be donated to The Center, one of New York’s oldest LGBTQ+ organizations.
In addition to the accessories, shoes, and small selection of ready-to-wear in supply (all organized appealingly by color), there is also a station to design a custom version of a spiffy new unisex silhouette, called GR3ENE in honor of the space. Colors and materials can be customized with a hologram program that provides a highly lifelike rendering during the design process. (Which, like the creation of the NFT, can be completed in under 10 minutes.) After you’ve perfected your design, the sneaker will arrive at the destination of your choice in about 10 weeks.
Davis’s appointment is one of the fashion world’s most hotly anticipated debuts, and Vitale said she expects he will introduce a new look and feel for the stores in keeping with his aesthetic. In the meantime, the house wants to keep customers titillated—or, better yet, entertained.
