Ralph Laurens NEW Beaux-Arts Store: 888 Madison & 72 Street

The biggest news this week is the new Ralph Lauren 22,000-square-foot boutique which opened on 888 Madison Avenue at 72nd street. The new store is located across the street from the famous Rhinelander mansion, which is exclusively focused on men’s clothing, while the new location is chiefly Home and women and features Laurens first domestic Watch & Jewelry Salon. The new store will offer the Ralph Lauren Collection, Women’s Black Label, Blue Label, Double RL, RLX Ralph Lauren and Home merchandise, along with fine jewelry, made-to-measure women’s suits and sleepwear. His new store complements the Rhinelander mansion, and gives precedence to the Ralph Lauren label in New York. The history behind the new boutique is that the original building was built and owned by Ruth Brown, a widow who hired McKim, Mead & White in 1893 to design a house at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue at 72nd Street. After it’s completion in 1894, Brown never moved into the mansion, as odd as that is. In 1895 it was sold to Alva Vanderbilt, who recently divorced from William K. Vanderbilt II, which then was purchased by Ralph Lauren for his store in 1986, and later torn down to make way for the new boutique which just opened.

The grand Beaux-Arts store is designed after architecture of the early 20th Century. The Beaux Arts styled limestone building was a collaboration between Weddle Gilmore and architect Thomas Hut of HS2 Architecture. The grand store could be viewed as a small country palace in France, although squeezed into an urban shopping district. At the official opening, Lauren was given the Key to the City by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in recognition of his contributions as a designer and a business leader.