Louis Vuitton Commes to Kips Bay

On Friday night, in the middle of Manhattan’s sleepy Kips Bay neighborhood, Comme des Garçons opened the brand-new New York outpost of their Dover Street Market menswear franchise, and inside, Louis Vuitton opened a pop-up shop of their own. It may hardly make sense on paper—that a dreary and styleless stretch of Midtown East would house CDG’s world of out-there abstraction, and that that world would house Vuitton’s heritage-heavy wares—but it all played out very nicely in practice. Comme des Garçons has a well-documented interest in uncharted retail territory: they were among the first to stake out space in Chelsea and SoHo before those neighborhoods became luxury shopping haunts. And they have a longstanding relationship with Louis Vuitton, having already collaborated together at Dover Street Market’s two other locations in London and Tokyo.

The selection of LV menswear on display fit squarely into the intersection of the two brands’ aesthetics: alongside their city-slicker, Warhol-inspired Spring collection hung four extremely limited-edition cotton biker jackets, hand-embroidered with otherworldly, amoeba-like forms by artist Terence Koh. These, plus a set of 20 striped T-shirts and 20 patterned button-downs also designed specially for the store, were equal parts artisanal and eccentric. 

THE LOUIS VUITTON POP-UP SHOP AT DOVER STREET MARKET IS LOCATED AT 160 LEXINGTON AVENUE IN NEW YORK, NY 10016. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT THE DSM WEBSITE.