Renewed 'La Bibliotheque' concept store opens Friday with Dosan-only sneakers, a stamping station and book-shaped dessert
The facade of Louis Vuitton's Seoul Dosan store now reads as a row of books stacked upright, their covers worked over with monogram detailing.
Visitors enter through a corridor lined with bookcases, and inside, merchandise sits on library shelves or lies open on reading desks.
The luxury house said the Seoul Dosan store has been renewed under the concept of "La Bibliotheque," French for library, and will open to the public on Friday.
The first floor is home to stationery and other miscellaneous items including backpacks, ballpoint pens, diaries, makeup, bag charms and leather goods. One wall is dedicated to the house's City Guide books, the Seoul edition among them. Visitors can stamp their own postcards at a personalization station, using La Bibliotheque postcards and envelopes supplied by the store.
The second floor expands on the goods from below, with mouse pads, book covers, passport covers and card holders, sunglasses, accessories and sneakers on display. Travel-themed scarves are displayed nearby, and a photo booth dressed as a set of library stacks sits on the same floor.
The draw for collectors is a pair of sneakers sold only at Dosan. One pair has a shoe charm with "Seoul" written in Hangeul, and comes in a shade the house calls Seoul Gray, developed for the store and said to be drawn from the color of the city at night. The two styles are expected to be priced between 1.8 million won and 2 million won ($1,350 and $1,500). Neither will be sold online.
The third-floor cafe has been rebuilt around the same idea, translating the moment of stumbling on a book in a library into dessert. The Library Crush Cake arrives under a plate shaped like a book, which diners open and crack to reach what is underneath.
An official at the Korean operation of Louis Vuitton said the library concept was chosen to connect the brand's own history with books with the "text hip" trend, a local term for reading and long-form text as a marker of taste. September, as a back-to-school month, provided the ideal timing. The house also runs its own publishing arm, the official noted, and regards bookmaking as a craft demanding the same precision as its leather goods.
Dosan has become the house's most frequently redrawn address in Korea. The store is renewed on a rolling basis, sometimes as often as every four months, and functions less as a fixed flagship than as a constantly changing pop-up. The most recent renewal, in January, marked the 130th anniversary of the monogram and staged the space as a hotel.
yoohong@heraldcorp.com
