HANDLE WITH CARE: Most individuals would balk at having skateboards and handcrafted stemware in the identical room.
However that’s precisely why Sarah Andelman needed to place the 2 classes collectively in “Consideration, Fragile!,” the vacation retail pop-up that she curated on the primary flooring of Sotheby’s new Paris headquarters.
“Any motion or momentum and one thing may be damaged, that’s what made me consider placing them collectively,” the model marketing consultant advised WWD throughout a walkthrough of the area, which opened Thursday.
Working till Dec. 20, it provides artworks, glassware, collectible skateboard decks and a collection of holiday-minded connoisseur treats, alongside a sampling of the public sale home’s fixed-price luxurious items from the likes of Hermès, Rolex and Chanel.
Sotheby’s needed to kick off its retail supply in Paris with a metaphorical bang – and who higher for the duty than Andelman, beforehand the buying and picture director of cult idea retailer Colette, mentioned Marie-Anne Ginoux, managing director of Sotheby’s Paris.
One of many home windows that includes luxurious gadgets combined in with skateboard decks and different collectibles.
Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Public sale homes are “a world of their very own,” one she hadn’t explored in depth earlier than curating an public sale for Pharrell Williams’ Joopiter platform, Andelman mentioned. It’s their pandemic-driven evolution that significantly stood out to her.
“What struck me once I went on Sotheby’s ‘purchase now’ part is that you just had the identical merchandise you’d discover on StockX, like sneakers and skateboards,” she continued. “I felt they had been speaking to 2 utterly completely different markets.”
When Sotheby’s got here calling, it felt apt to offset the normal picture of public sale homes as purveyors of main artwork and traditional luxurious gadgets with skateboard tradition.
Plus, “[Sotheby’s] jogs my memory a little bit of Colette…in the way in which it transforms continuous,” Andelman mentioned.
On the partitions are a mess of skateboard decks, together with a trio that includes the work of John Baldessari and a Pantone-themed sequence of 5 imagined by Ryan McGuinness and produced by Supreme in 2000.
Rigorously arrayed on transport crates are glasses by New York-based designer Jonathan Hansen, who has collaborated with the likes of Thom Browne and Ralph Rucci; Maison Balzac, a 12-year-old label based in Australia by French-born Elise Pioch Balzac, an Hermès alum turned purchaser turned tableware maker; and French designer Sam Barron, who teamed up with Italian grasp glassmaker Massimo Lunardon for “French Kiss,” a sequence of 30 distinctive glasses imagined for this pop-up.
The “French Kiss” assortment by Massimo Lunardon and Sam Baron.
Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Within the salon often devoted to retail appointments, Andelman set an set up and collection of goodies from Thai artist PZ Opassuksatit – with a pair of Picassos on the wall.
Whereas the overarching concept is “bringing collectively crushes,” Andelman mentioned she was additionally eager to supply merchandise that may’t be discovered elsewhere in Paris, and preserve a broad-ranging combine of pricey and extra reasonably priced gadgets.
Alongside decks and art work that might set you again 5 figures are “Skateboard Tradition,” a newly launched e-book written by skateboarding insider Morgan Bouvant and journalist Sébastien Carayol; a collection of treats similar to sweets from Palomas, a Lyon-based chocolatier that’s all the fad among the many Paris style set; and prize-winning olive oil from La Cavalerie, an property in Provence that belongs to Cosima Ungaro, the daughter of the late Emanuel Ungaro.
Forward of the vacation season, she additionally curated a collection of presents that vary from Simply An Thought books to necklaces by Berlin-based jewellery label Avgvst; ceramic objects depicting stationery by French label En Vrac, and a golden waffle by Belgian clothier Jean-Paul Lespagnard.
There may also be a sequence of occasions all through the pop-up, together with a olive oil and chocolate tasting on Nov. 30 and a skateboard-themed e-book signing with Raphael Zarka, Fred Mortagne and skateboarder Ed Templeton on Dec. 8.
