Kartell Kicks-Off Miami Art Basel with New Store Opening in Coral Gables
The bright Florida sun gleams through the windows of the new Kartell Flagship store in Miami, looking out onto the charming Coral Gables district. Located at 490 Biltmore Way, the flagship lives amongst the picturesque, Mediterranean-style streets, situated just a few blocks from Miracle Mile – one of the city’s main shopping areas.
The store, spanning over 5,300 sf, presents like a promenade of product displays, with the primary focus being outdoor items – amongst which the HIRAY collection by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba catches the eye. The displays also present various ways in which to combine new products with the brand’s most iconic pieces, offering a complete overview of the different indoor and outdoor furnishing options and combinations offered by Kartell.
In a city like Miami, where outdoor spaces are enjoyed year-round, Kartell displays its versatile and contemporary outdoor environment design style, valuing both fluidity and personality. HiRay by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba is a collection brought to life using the welded wire technique, which creates pieces with a well-defined yet lightweight structure – chairs, bistro tables, armchairs, couches, side tables. This results in a functional product rich with character.
The pieces in this collection offer a range of colors; from white, to bordeaux, to black, to green. Mixing Kartell’s creativity and new materials, which are the result of constant innovation and an enduring search for greater sustainability, results in creations designed specifically for outdoor use as well as a reimagining of best-sellers that have been adapted to withstand the test of time.
The use of metal and its unique industrial processing techniques in Kartell’s collections is part of the brand’s efforts to increase use of sustainable materials, dating back several years. Metal now joins other recycled materials such as wood, green polycarbonate, and biomaterials, to create a new wave of environmentally friendly designs, made possible by investments in technological innovation, creative solutions, and new increasingly efficient sustainable materials.
“The opening of the Flagship store in Miami,” explains Lorenza Luti, Kartell’s Marketing and Retail Director, “is part of a global expansion of directly operated retail spaces in strategic markets such as the United States, where Kartell already has numerous points of sale. The USA represents an increasingly important commercial area for the brand. Alongside developing a network of shops, e-commerce is also being rolled out to reach the entire country in a more widespread manner. The work on multi-channel marketing within the American market is an integral part of Kartell’s strategy to offer a consistent online and offline shopping experience. By aligning all the marketing tools, we strive to provide the customer with a reputable service and, above all, garner feelings of aspiration in regard to the products, both virtually and at shops.”
“For me,” comments Roberto Palomba, Architect and Designer, “the outdoors represents the freedom of no constraints. It represents nature – the relationship with light, with greenery, with the stars, with the wind, with everything that somehow makes being outside joyful. Precisely for this reason, when designing an outdoor collection like HiRay, we work to create very light, nearly transparent pieces. I like the idea of elements moving through mesh within this thin metal structure, making it so that the water, the wind, and the light are the protagonists just as much as we are. For me, an outdoor object shouldn’t put up resistance, but rather integrate by blending with the space – think a metal trellis over which some jasmines can grow and intertwine. During the design process of HiRay, I focused on bringing select iconographies of the past into our present architectural designs, underlining the permeability of these elements. This is the spirit with which the collection was born, working to minimize the amount of material used, while also keeping it recyclable -- an aspect which is also central to the Kartell philosophy. Kartell loves the planet – precisely for this reason, the objects we create to exist in nature must not disturb it.”
The opening of the Flagship store in Miami, scheduled for November 30th, is part of the Miami’s Art Basel calendar and will be preceded by a special discussion with Roberto Palomba, in which the designer will give his vision of contemporary living. He will be joined by The Grand Tourist’s podcaster, Dan Rubinstein.
Address: 490 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables, FL 3313