Acne
Acne Drives Into Paris
December 15, 2011
Acne opened its second Paris store yesterday on rue Froissart in the 3rd arrondissement, but founder Jonny Johansson remained in a Swedish, not Gallic, mood. “I wanted to do something with a contemporary Stockholm vibe, because that’s where we’re from and it’s been on my mind a lot lately,” he said about the new shop. “When you walk in, you’re not sure if it’s a garage or a club.” (Understandably so—the space used to be a garage.)
Johansson and Acne’s in-house architect Andreas Fornell transformed the formerly oil-stained space (which Johansson found two years years ago while walking around Paris), making sure to preserve the concrete shell and adding a sleek chrome, marble, and beige-carpeted interior with suspended LED strip lighting. As a set piece, he installed a 650-kilo antique marble nude, which artist Daniel Silver dragged from Italy to London.
The Acne team came to Paris en masse to toast the opening and to celebrate with a midnight supper at Lapérouse, with friends Roxane Mesquida, Irina Lazareanu, Gaia Repossi, and Kenzo’s Carol Lim and Humberto Leon. Acne Paper’s Thomas Persson showed up with a surprise guest, singer Jonny Woo from London, who performed a short set featuring shock-and-awe versions of the Doors’ “Tell All the People” and Nina Simone’s “Gin House Blues.”
Paris is only the latest stop for Acne, which already owns 30 stores worldwide; its next will open in New York (the city’s second) in 2012. In the meantime, Johansson has been busy planning Acne’s Fall men’s show in January, which will be shown in—sense a theme?—a Paris garage.
Photo: Courtesy of Acne
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