When Maria Cunha, one of the three founding partners of the fledgling women’s shoe company Josefinas, contacted New York–based designer Christian Lahoude to create a flagship store in Manhattan, she thought he would pass. The company had purveyed their brand online only. This would be Josefinas’s first brick-and-mortar presence, with a significantly limited budget compared to Lahoude’s high-end clientele, which includes brands such as Jimmy Choo, Gucci, and Tiffany & Co. But after researching Josefinas’s merchandise, Lahoude knew that he wanted to be involved. “There was something there,” he says, “superior craftsmanship and quite luxurious qualities.”
After Cunha and cofounder Sofia Oliveira scouted a number of potential locations throughout the city, they settled on a long, narrow 540-square-foot storefront on a boutique-lined block in the NoLita neighborhood.
The challenge of translating the label’s digital identity into its first physical setting offered Lahoude an opportunity for creative freedom. “I really had a blank slate,” he says. “There was no precedent, no hundred years of history.”
