Saks Fifth Avenue toasted Los Angeles on Wednesday night, hosting a dinner party for friends and clients at the new hot spot Caviar Kaspia.
The retailer will turn its attention to the market next year when it takes over the former Barneys New York building on Wilshire Boulevard and opens its Saks store there in fall 2023.
Saks will also not be giving up its current building, which it plans to use for other projects.
“LA is such an important market and if you’re not careful, you could be living in a bubble in New York. It’s been a part of Saks almost as long as Saks has been Saks. It was one of our first stores,” said CEO Marc Metrick.
“We’re investing in the market, we took the Barneys building and the parking lot next to it… This is a market for us that was underdeveloped and it’s important. Check out what all the brands at Rodeo are doing. We are not alone here,” he continued.
In fact, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is developing a nine-story Cheval Blanc hotel on Rodeo Drive, where it also bought the Luxe hotel building and has just opened its first Loewe store in Los Angeles; Dior is due to start soon with a four-story boutique and restaurant, and Chanel is in the midst of building its boutique, which will be one of the brand’s largest in the world.
Emma Roberts and her boyfriend Cody John, Ava Phillippe, Alexandra Shipp, Kathy Hilton, Anita Ko and others sat under the stars at the restaurant, sipping champagne and eating caviar-laced baked potatoes from hand-calligraphed spoons.
emma roberts
Sydney Jackson/BFA.com
The talk turned to crazy New Year’s fashion news, including Balenciaga’s disturbing ad campaigns (“I think the brand is done for, don’t you?” said one guest) and Alessandro Michele’s surprise departure from Gucci.
People who saw the designer in Los Angeles just a few weeks ago for the LACMA Art + Film gala said they saw no sign of him leaving, but suggested he would land on his feet, perhaps even “pulling a Tom Ford” and throwing his own brand, which has proven to be quite lucrative.
The continued rise of Los Angeles was a hot topic, from upcoming Celine and Versace shows here, to continued store openings, which don’t seem to be stopping in 2023. Beauty entrepreneur Tina Craig revealed she’ll be spending a lot more time in Los Angeles. . , as she is opening her first U Beauty store here.
“This is my second time here in a month, and my wife is starting to ask questions,” Metrick quipped during his toast to the crowd, referring to an event he hosted with Staud’s Sarah Staudinger a few weeks ago at Tony Duquette’s Dawnridge. He continued: “Enjoy the night, enjoy the carbs. It’s fine when they’re French.”
Source: news.google.com