New Gucci Flagship: Disneyland for Monied Dames, Alcatraz for Bored Beaux

Much has been said about the party Gucci and Madonna will throw on February 6 at the United Nations. But relatively little is known about the fête’s raison d’être—the opening of the fashion brand’s largest store ever, its flagship to end all flagships.

Today, The Daily Transom was given some information about Gucci’s forthcoming Fifth Avenue digs. And from the looks of things, when the store opens its doors in February, it will realize the dreams of all manner of folk—from society ladies looking to prolong the buzz of a boozy lunch at Michael’s to T-shirted tourists ogling.

The 46,000-square-foot space is, after all, going up in Trump Tower, which proudly sits at the corner of Vortex and Vortex.

According to Gucci’s attending press materials, the flagship—whose design was conceived by the company’s creative director, Frida Giannini, and executed by well-known architect James Carpenter—will encompass “three spacious, warm, light-infused floors”—one will be designated for ladies and gents, respectively.

The concept? Admittedly, if fittingly, rather gauche. “The gleaming glass exterior...cuts a striking view from the street,” the label’s literature reads.

On the inside, things get even more precious, or, as the company claims, symbolic: “For example, smoked mirror and smoked bronze glass alternate to allow for an elongated perspective; door handles are comprised of alternating gold and glass vertical shapes; the floor is covered in white marble that is sliced with a wide black marble strip that runs underfoot, up the wall and on the ceiling overhead; a fused bronze glass with a striped cross section and a cracked lacquer are used on shelving and display cases, while rails, with a square cross section, have been created in warm polished gold.”

They really have thought of everything, it seems. Because those vulnerable few moments between trying on different frocks can linger on in a painstaking fashion, guests will be provided with their own robes “monogrammed with the original Guccio Gucci script signature” in the changing rooms.