Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss has commissioned to Cristiano Benzoni and Sophie Thuillier the new Champs-Élysées flagship store design in Paris.

With its 1000 m2, it is located at 78, avenue des Champs-Elysées, on the corner of the Galerie des Arcades. A prestigious unique theatre, both large and small, with urban friendliness and people’s enjoyment of life. The new flagship Levi’s wants to be firstly a happening place, before being a store. A place that offers its customers and the Champs Elysees something more than just trade: a dramatic and accessible place where you can walk, where you can stop and appreciate the views, open spaces, walking around a story and a brand. A tribute to Levi’s wants to make this unique place a symbol of enjoyment of life on the Champs Elysees, one of the most prestigious avenues in the world.

With its new flagship store, Levi’s wants to tell it’s story, the history of jeans : a canvas, privileged icon of modernity spanning over 150 years.

The new retail concept store is based on the experience of travel and discovery, a «road trip» core to the heart of Levi’s. The continuity of the promenade on the Champs Elysees and communication between the 3 levels of the store is solved by creating a large floor opening that makes distribution visible and fluid and «measures» the exceptional volume of the store. A structural column, evidence of the existing building, features between the three levels in the store. Two large scenographic spaces connect emotion to the expression of the brand, distributing a fluid movement between floors. Each stage is defined by a particular theme that reveals a difference between each product, each collection and irresistibly invites the public to visit the legendary icons of the brand : Red Tab collection and made & crafted, LVC (Levi’s Vintage Clothing). Each product area is created through a ‘manipulation’ of codes of the brand within the store space : the product looks for poetic harmony based on the links with space, materials, found objects… Large wooden vertical supports measure the exceptional height of the interior volumes. Against this background are predisposed a large number of given components allowing Levis full freedom to organize the visual merchandising and organization of product.

The interior of the store is looking to be a radical and basic support to show the identity of Levi’s. Like denim, most materials chosen for the interiors are «sensitive» to unique and valuable traces such as wood, leather, metal. The new iconic architecture of the store becomes the new primary medium of communication and expression for the brand.

Here a new Parisian story begins, shared by all, popular and unique, like the Levi’s jeans.