Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy will team up with Colette in October to create a month long retail space and gallery.
The duo will be offering a selection of their fall designs alongside objets d’art and some other favorite pieces they curated for the occasion.
Located on Colette’s second floor, the gallery will be unveiled during Paris Fashion Week and remain open for the rest of that month.
Kate Mulleavy said she and her sister jumped at Colette buyer Sarah Lerfel’s suggestion to create the store and gallery.
“Colette was one of the first stores to carry us, so we have a strong relationship with Sarah, who has…given us a lot of guidance,” Mulleavy said.
The store will offer many of the things the Mulleavys love, from CDs of their favorite music to DVDs of 25 or so of their favorite horror flicks, including “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Don’t Look Now,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Black Sunday.”
In addition to a selection of specially created Rodarte pieces like stuffed, knitted animals, the designers enlisted their mother to create limited edition jewelry for the Colette collaboration, and asked some of their friends and people whose work inspires them to design things. Among them are Love necklaces by Alexandra Grant, pillow cases by Miranda July, glitter taxidermy by Annakim Violette and books with covers hand-painted by Rebekah Miles, from “Charlotte’s Web” to a Kurt Cobain biography. The sisters collect these books and picked the ones to be sold at Colette.
At the gallery space, the designers selected American art works by the likes of Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Mari Estman, Elliott Hundley, Alexandra Grant, Karen Kilimnik, Ari Marcopoulous, Raymond Pettibon and Autumn de Wilde.
“Rodarte has always been so inspiring,” Lerfel said. “I’m fascinated by their world. We already gave them windows for their first season and I was impressed with the way they built them. So I’m happy to give them space at Colette to express more, to let them introduce their collection but also everything they like.”
Mulleavy said the project served as an opportunity “to let people inside of our minds. It’s almost as if you are in our studio.”
Colette will also exclusively sell Rodarte’s marbled ballet flats, which the duo created in collaboration with Repetto.
“Colette is such an amazing store because it is always changing and challenging the landscape, especially of retail,” Mulleavy said.
