Alaïa Opens the Doors to a SANAA-Designed Paris Flagship
In the 1950s, Tunisian couturier Azzedine Alaïa moved to Paris to enter the world of fashion. After design stints at Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, he opened his first atelier in 1979. Run out of his Parisian apartment, the clothes he designed for the likes of Greta Garbo were synonymous with exquisite tailoring that accented the female form.
Almost 50 years later, Paris remains the capital of couture, and Maison Alaïa is still one of its key players. It’s only fitting for the house’s new flagship would be located at 15 Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, a winding strip in the city’s 8th arrondissement affiliated with high style, which also hosts Hermès, Bottega Veneta, and Alexander McQueen stores.
15 Faubourg Saint Honoré completes a trilogy of sorts, with each of Alaïa’s three Parisian boutiques representing a distinct facet of the brand. In collaboration with Alaïa’s creative director Pieter Mulier, the latest store was designed by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of Japanese architecture firm SANAA. This past year, the studio known for Grace Farms and other bold works won the prestigious 2025 Le Prix Charlotte Perriand, an honor recognizing their visionary contributions to modern architecture and design. “We are honored to have had the opportunity to work with Alaïa on the design of this new boutique,” the duo tells AD. “It is a space of soft boundaries and gentle reflections that wraps and unravels around visitors like a second skin, dissolving into a field of objects as people move up through the layers of the project.”
The idea of “second skin”—a barrier, a shield, something intimate, indecent, or familial—is integral to Alaïa, a key part of the house’s design language. Soft, sculptural forms and signature curves define the couture created since the ’80s. The new flagship’s interior evokes this concept through tongue-pink tones and other nudes in the house’s repertoire of colors. On the ground floor, four transparent tubular rooms are each dedicated to a distinct range of clothes and accessories. In these glass rooms, time stands still, and products become a sort of specimen. Visitors peek in and feel almost indiscrete—they are now involved in an exhibitionist display.
Throughout the flagship, garments float on display podiums designed to present each item as an individual work of art. Mulier has curated his favorite art and design pieces to be showcased, too. A table by Ron Arad and Philippe Malouin’s Mollo armchairs present another interpretation of the house’s curvilinear syntax. Diamond Stingily’s sculptures, from her series Elephant Memory, juxtapose hand-braided, black synthetic hair with galvanized steel chains. They are inspired by female elephants and their herds, who develop close bonds, make friends, and grieve them when they pass away.
A spiral staircase leads to the boutique’s second floor. In the mezzanine, the iconic Milanese café Sant Ambroeus awaits. If the ground floor stands out for its grandeur, the secondary spaces evoke the familial essence of Alaïa.
Seeing, bonding, and sharing are all means of creating proximity, of identifying something close to ourselves. With this new flagship, Alaïa expands its physical presence in Paris while ideating on this concept through craftsmanship in the fashion, design, and artistic realms, as envisioned by Pieter Mulier. Azzedine Alaïa had a dream of having a boutique on rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré—with this location, his dream is manifested.
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
