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Bloomie's, Louis Vuitton Take Design Prize

Former winners include Ferragamo, Apple and Alexander McQueen.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 11/30/2004 12:00:00 AM

VM+SD magazine, which reports on the store design and visual merchandising industry, has named The Bloomingdale's SoHo store and the new Louis Vuitton flagship, both in New York City, the 2004 New York Stores of the Year. The annual awards go to the two stores that "best embody the challenges and difficulties of creating innovative and stylish retailing" in the city. Former winners include the Ferragamo and Apple flagship stores and the Carlos Miele and Alexander McQueen boutiques.

The Bloomingdale's store was lauded for its faithfulness to the loftlike architecture common to the downtown neighborhood and its daring adoption of color, natural light, new materials and flowing lines. The successful project was a joint effort among architects and designers from the uptown Bloomingdale's design and visual merchandising office, the planning and construction team at Federated Department Stores (the parent company of Bloomingdale's) and the now-defunct design and architecture firm Tucci, Segrete & Rosen.

Louis Vuitton took over the building formerly occupied by Warner Bros. Studio Stores on Fifth Avenue. The project was honored for its stylishness, ability to maintain its fashion sensibility in a large space and bold use of color and lighting. The store planning department from LVMH Fashion Group Americas, New York design firm Peter Marino & Associates, Japanese architect Jun Aoki and architects from the Phillips Group in New York and Shawmut Design and Construction of Boston all contributed to the winning design.

The retailers will receive their awards, apples made from crystal, this December 7 at the PAVE gala, which will be held during StoreXpo: Once at the International Toy Building, located at 200 Fifth Avenue in New York City. A special reception will also be held to honor the winners on December 8 in the Javits Center Keynote Theater at 5 p.m.

VM+SD is published monthly by ST Media Group International, which owns publications, branded Web sites, a custom book division, and events that serve the visual communications markets. The company hosts the VM+SD International Retail Design Conference, which will be held September 21-25, 2005 in Chicago.