EXCLUSIVE: Art Basel Launches Retail Concept With Colette Cofounder
MILAN — Art Basel is ready to unveil a new concept store with Sarah Andelman, the brand consultant and cofounder of the Parisian concept store Colette, which shut in 2017 after two decades in business.
Andelman and her mother Colette Roussaux opened the Parisian emporium in 1997 and quickly became known for forging intriguing collaborations, and merging fashion with the worlds of design, art and food.
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The 2024 Swiss Edition of Art Basel will take place at Messe Basel from June 13 to 16, with previews on June 11 and 12. The store, which will open on June 11, was conceived by Art Basel to celebrate and extend the Art Basel experience, especially with a new and largely exclusive AB by Art Basel heritage line of items that pay homage to Art Basel’s rich and vibrant visual history, from iconic campaigns to key moments captured on film or in photographs.
The Art Basel Shop will showcase a selection of bespoke lifestyle products and collectibles curated by Andelman, who is also the founder of Just an Idea, a consultancy that tackles retail projects and creates shopping destinations.
The new, exclusive, special-edition items across art, design, fashion and publishing will be available to fair visitors and the local public for a limited time during Art Basel 2024.
The Art Basel Shop marks the organization’s first venture into owned product design and distribution as part of Art Basel’s wider mission to elevate its offering, create more opportunities for artists, and deepen engagement with its ever-growing community of art professionals and enthusiasts.
“The Art Basel Shop is fully aligned with our vision to create new ways to engage and positively impact our audience, to deliver more value to galleries, artists and cultural partners, and to materially celebrate and reinforce Art Basel as a best-in-class, unmissable cultural experience,” said Hayley Romer, Art Basel’s chief growth officer.
Andelman, who has also worked with Diptyque, the LVMH-owned Le Bon Marché, and Pharrell Williams’ auction house Joopiter, said she’s deeply passionate about artist editions of all kinds — from books to postcards, rare collectibles and T-shirts.
“This first edition of The Art Basel Shop reflects the diversity of products that speak to collectors and art lovers alike: rare, exclusive, surprising. The products hail from all corners of the world, while being tailor-fit for the show’s host city and presenting artists,” she said.
The inaugural edition of The Art Basel Shop will feature a limited-edition line of products developed in collaboration with leading American, Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim, whose work traverses the arenas of sound, performance, drawing, installation and video.
Available exclusively at Art Basel 2024, the store will present Kim’s work within its Artist Highlight Collection, including curious products like a baby rattle in wood produced by the French children’s musical toymaker Nina & Miles, and a collectible jigsaw puzzle emblazoned with the phrase “The Sound of No Fight.”
The latter recalls the visual vocabulary of the artist’s “open caption” mural works which were installed across Manchester, England, in 2021. There will also be an array of clothing and accessories inscribed with the artist’s distinctive handwriting.
Retail in the realm of collectible art and design is on the rise, helped by the buoyancy of the collectible design market and the growing community of collectors, large and small.
MoMA Design Store launched its website in 1998 and it has grown into an impressive omnichannel enterprise, with all its purchases supporting the Museum of Modern Art’s collections and educational programs.
The store locations are situated strategically, with three in New York City, two in Japan, Tokyo and Kyoto, and one in Hong Kong. The MoMA Design Store also operates e-commerce in the U.S., Japan and Hong Kong.
Last year, MoMA Design Store management told WWD that it is exploring markets outside of the U.S., in emerging design and cultural destinations, such as Portugal, South Korea and other cities in Japan. It hopes to discover new designers and explore new manufacturing capabilities.
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