Nicola’s is temporary concept store. Under Formichetti’s direction, the 1300 square foot space at Karkula’s 50 Walker Street, New York, has transformed into a mirrored prism. The store housed a collection of limited edition pieces available to purchase such as Thierry Mugler menswear and womenswear, Nicola’s iphone cases, jewelry, candles, t-shirts and exclusive designs by emerging international designers.d a raw and fresh new way to look at fashion.
Nicola’s will also feature installations from Formichetti’s past and present creations and collaborations. As the Creative Director of Thierry Mugler, Fashion Director to Lady Gaga, the Haus of Gaga, Uniqlo and Vogue Japan, as well as contributor to V Magazine, Dazed & Confused and Another Magazine, Formichetti has created some of the most memorable imagery, performances, and moments in recent pop culture history. A selection of this work has been curated in the space alongside other initiatives exclusive to Nicola’s.
“With the collaborative creative vision of Gage Clemenceau Architects, ‘Nicola’s’ is an opportunity to look directly into my head. Visitors get to see my work with Mugler and collaborations with magazines as well as the work I’ve created with Lady Gaga. It’s everything I love in one store.”
Typically, fashion environments are defined by restrained minimalism that focuses the attention only on the clothing. This design rewrote the equation to produce a new genre of experimental space that not only showcased, but magnified the impact of Nicola Formichetti’s fashion designs into a new form of immersive visual environment. Hundreds of robotically carved mirrored facets were formed into a gem-like interior cave that optically fused designs by Nicola, with other merchandise- as well as architectural special effects including robotic lighting, projection mist, and interactive virtual reality components.
Renowned architectural firm, Gage Clemenceau Architects were selected from over 60 candidates by BOFFO, Nicola Formichetti, and a specifically selected panel of judges to make Nicola’s inner most creativity and visions come to life in a retail environment. With their unique designs and innovative use of technology, Focus Lighting, Mark Gage and Marc Bailey Clemenceau shaped the space into a faceted, robotic, mirrored chapel that invited a raw and fresh new way to look at fashion.
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Nicola Formichetti is among the most prolific and widely accomplished creatives of his generation. He is an award-winning and acclaimed fashion designer, creative director, stylist and editor, responsible for well-known cultural flashpoints including Lady Gaga’s “meat dress” and boundary-pushing visual campaigns.
Nicola has held top design roles at Uniqlo, Diesel, Mugler and Haus of Gaga. He has imagined visual collaborations with Pepsi, Nike, MAC, Barney’s and H&M and had editor positions at Vogue Japan Hommes, Dazed and Confused, V, Another Magazine, Arena Homme +, and Harper’s Bazaar. Nicola is also the creator of Nicopanda, a gender-neutral high concept streetwear brand, modeled after Nicola’s own image.
Underpinning all of Nicola’s creative endeavors is his unique connection and understanding of youth, street, nightlife and international culture, drawing on his Japanese-Italian upbringing and early adulthood as a fixture in London’s club culture. Nicola uses emerging storytelling platforms to inspire and guide the next generation of free thinkers, often using emerging platforms and technology to connect with his global audience. He seamlessly bridges the gap between innovation, commercialism, and art, breathing new life into both brands and those that are inspired by his work.
Nicola’s work has won international accolades. He has been twice named to Business Of Fashion’s BoF 500 list, awarded the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator, been recognized with a Clio award, named a Fashion Innovator at Elle Style Awards and earned three Hermes awards. For his work in the LGBTQIA+ community, Nicola was recognized as a 2018 Queero by Them magazine and honored at the 2018 Emery Awards by Hetrick-Martin Institute.
Gage Clemenceau Architects. Founded in 2002 by Mark Foster Gage and Marc Clemenceau Bailly, Gage / Clemenceau Architects is at the forefront of a new generation of architects working to combine architectural practice with the innovative use of today’s emerging technologies. The work of the firm has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum in Berlin. Recently, Gage / Clemenceau Architects was selected as one of the architecture firms to represent the United States in the 2010 Beijing International Biennale. The firm has won numerous awards including being named an “Avant Guardians” of architecture, by Surface Magazine in 2010, and was nominated as one of thirteen firms, internationally, for the inaugural Ordos Prize in Architecture in 2009- a select group that Rem Koolhaas referred to as “the next generation of great architects.” Gage / Clemenceau Architects was also a winner of the New York Architectural League’s Young Architects Forum in 2008, was a finalist for the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program in 2007, and received the AIA New Practices Award, by the American Institute of Architect’s New York Chapter in 2006.
The work of Gage / Clemenceau Architects has been featured in media and press venues including the New York Times, USA Today, Vogue, Wired, Surface and Fox News, as well as in numerous books internationally. The design work of the firm was included in the 2009 compendium, Icons of Graphic Design, which includes the “most influential designs and designers from 1900 to the present.” In 2008 Gage / Clemenceau Architects was commissioned to produce the first public art project for Times Square in Manhattan, which was the subject of a documentary by the filmmaker Peter Dippery. Gage / Clemenceau Architects currently employs nine designers and is located in the Lower East Side of New York City.