Amidst the battalion of luxury strongholds in Paris’s storied Champs-Élysées district, Polène’s new flagship quietly commands attention. Inside, the space radiates a calm and collected brand of minimalism, inspired by the 9-year-old brand’s artisanal backbone and the neutral-forward palette of Ubrique, the Spanish town that’s home to its workshops.
“[Ubrique] is our starting point but also our horizon,” co-founder and CEO Antoine Mothay says of the low-key Andalusian locale, which has garnered quite the reputation as the fashion world’s purveyor of leather goods in recent years. “This daily dialogue between Paris and Ubrique is what makes our approach unique.”
The boutique was designed in collaboration with Korean studio WGNB, which has already left its mark on Polène’s Seoul and London outposts, to highlight the house’s legion of bags, jewelry, and small leather goods. “What appealed to me about WGNB was their desire to create a calm, serene, and warm atmosphere … and for this tranquility to radiate out onto the street,” says Mothay.
Indeed, the space provides sanctuary from the bustle of the Parisian avenues, ushering visitors up a dark wooden staircase and through its dome-punctuated expanse. Leather is, unsurprisingly, another leitmotif. With the Tours-based Hors Studio, Polène devised a way to transform the material into stone, which coats the tabletops and checkout counter. “Making leather surprising is a common thread in this flagship, which follows a conviction deeply rooted in all of our projects,” notes Mothay.
This taste for material experimentation extends throughout the boutique’s key design elements. Marianna Ladreyt, known for her creations across fashion and furniture, handwove a sculptural sofa from intertwined leather tubes. Meanwhile, ceramicist Clémentine Debaere-Lewandowski contributed a textured table formed from clay impressions taken in Ubrique’s mountainous terrain.
The patience and site-specificity of the latter work particularly touched Mothay, who lived in Ubrique while the brand was still nascent. “It reminds me of the importance of taking the time to create beautiful, sensitive, and poetic objects,” he shares. The same could be said of Polène’s Champs-Élysées home, which takes the brand’s ethos of everyday abundance to new heights.
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