Miami's luxury offering continues to grow

By

Florent Gilles

Published
Dec 10, 2012

Early December saw the 11th annual Art Basel Miami Beach take place. Along with this generally comes a stream of pop-up stores, hoping to ride the wake of the most prestigious art show in the Americas. A bit further up the coast in the Design District, where the Design Miami trade show is held, luxury European brands are employing their latest concepts in their longstanding Miami stores.

New to the scene are Dior Homme and Céline, who join Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Maison Martin Margiela, Louboutin, Fendi Casa and Marni. Italian brand Agnona, part of the Zegna group also benefited from the festivities, opening a pop-up store in an art gallery with the hope to prepare the brand for its return to Stefano Pilati, who was recently re-named Artistic Director.

The transformation of the urban area is essentially down to real estate agency Dacra and its CEO, Craig Robbins. Robbins is said to have directly worked with the LVMH group to reserve a selection of locations especially for the French luxury group’s brands. And Céline and Dior Homme are certaintly not the last brands to set up shop in Miami. It is said that an Hermès store could be on the horizon.

According to local press, the emergence of the Design District as the top luxury retail destination in Miami could soon be a rival for Bal Harbour, Florida’s first luxury shopping center, opened in 1965.