Luxury goods label Louis Vuitton opened its temporary New York flagship store with a different look and flavor than its original that's undergoing a multiyear renovation just across the street.
The new five-story shop, located at 6 E. 57th St. near the Fifth Avenue luxury shopping corridor, attracted a steady stream of visitors Friday, but they weren't just shelling out for pricey accessories or leather handbags. They took pictures of the store’s features, including a soaring atrium showcasing 52-foot-plus installations of the brand’s signature trunks designed by Shohei Shigematsu, partner at architecture firm OMA. The storefront facade featuring a giant holiday-themed giraffe and ostrich attracted just as much attention.
On the fourth floor, the store includes Louis Vuitton’s first-ever U.S. Le Chocolat Maxime Frédéric chocolate shop. The floor was set for a Saturday official opening of the public of Le Café Louis Vuitton, the first outpost in the United States for what Louis Vuitton bills as a “luxury snacking” concept, with menu items including monogram waffles shaped to look like the brand's famed insignia. The staff said the cafe has been booked solid for weeks to come.
Louis Vuitton last year signed a lease spanning 36,000 square feet at the former Tiffany & Co. location in a lease expiring in August 2028, according to CoStar data.
Across the street, an art installation has made the permanent flagship under renovation look like a massive stack of the Louis Vuitton trunks. The brand is said to be tearing down its original store before rebuilding it.
Louis Vuitton is part of the French luxury goods giant LVMH that also owns Tiffany and Fendi, among other names. LVMH and Louis Vuitton didn’t immediately respond to CoStar News requests seeking a comment.
The debuts and construction work come as luxury demand has driven a surge of retail activity in New York and other cities.
'Riding high'
“The ‘High Streets’ are still riding high,” Matthew Fainchtein, managing director of JLL Retail Advisory, said in a report released Thursday.
The urban retail sector is poised for a “strong rebound” as foot traffic in city centers increases, the JLL study said, adding luxury brands such as Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton are “leading this resurgence by expanding their brick-and-mortar presence in top U.S. cities.” New York, in particular, is a big draw for luxury brands. Between July 2023 to July 2024, New York saw 34 new luxury openings, the most of any U.S. cities, according to the JLL study.
In a sign of demand, the so-called Upper Fifth Avenue stretch between 49th and 60th streets in Manhattan in the third quarter saw its availability rate decline to 14.5% from 23.2% a year earlier, the biggest drop among all Manhattan shopping corridors, according to a Cushman & Wakefield study, adding asking rents of about $2,300 per square foot ranked the highest.
The stretch is also where the likes of Gucci and Prada have paid what’s been described as “record prices” to buy their Fifth Avenue flagships.
“Luxury and upscale apparel brands continued to be active in the Plaza District,” CBRE said in a third-quarter Manhattan retail report.
Meanwhile, Louis Vuitton’s first U.S. cafe furthers the trend of brands adding experiences to attract foot traffic.
From the beginning of 2020 to the third quarter of 2024, New York saw a net addition of 1,350 food, drink, and entertainment businesses, with growth in the sector in all five boroughs, according to a study released Friday from the New York City Department of City Planning.
There’s “a long-term shift toward food, drink, entertainment, and other 'experiential' storefront businesses and away from 'dry goods' retail like clothing, electronics, and home goods stores,” according to the study.