Logos to take center stage at Le Bon Marché's next exhibition

By

Anaïs Lerévérend

Published
Nov 16, 2017

Le Bon Marché plans to hold the event – sitting somewhere at the crossroads between the nineties revival and the return of the logo – during the next Autumn/Winter women's Fashion Week in 2018. The Parisian Left Bank department store is therefore preparing  to open its next big exhibition on February 24 and close it April 1. Under the code name "Let's go logo", the event will bring together over one hundred brands, as well as two special guests: Off/White and Lola James Harper. 

 
As in the Paris-themed exhibition in September 2016, and the Italy-themed event this September, a number of exclusive products have been developed by the labels (Céline, Carven, Guerlain, Roseanna, La Nouvelle, De Fursac among others) around the theme of logos. The subject seems to have seduced and inspired the brands, which have had fun distorting their logos, coming up with them from scratch like Isabel Marant, or applying them to tie-in products like Ami did with a scooter and a helmet. It's a playful offering which will be displayed in an Ali Baba-like cavern on the ground floor of the department store and will be, for the first time, completely cross-sectional, featuring womenswear, childrenswear, accessories, beauty and even La Grande Epicerie. 

Le Bon Marché will also explore the logo theme through two special installations thought up by the two guest brands on the upper floors. We still don't know much about what Virgil Abloh will offer with the capsule conceived for the occasion, other than the fact that it will be displayed in its own dedicated space and that the logo theme will no doubt have inspired the designer, whose style draws on urban influences with prominent logos. 

 
The details of the installation conceived by the second guest – Lola James Harper – are, however, much clearer. Founded in 2013 by jack-of-all-trades Rami Mekdachi and his wife Céline, this lifestyle concept produces music, beauty products, candles, photographs, screen-printed t-shirts, but above all ambiances. Having already dedicated a corner to the brand, followed by a café where customers can listen to and buy vinyl on the first floor, Le Bon Marché will hand over a 300-square-meter space to Lola James Harper during the Let's go logo exhibition. 

Expanding its range in line with the theme and displaying its first fashion offering, which is expected to grow in the future, along with plenty of other products in a refreshing lifestyle spirit, Lola James Harper will give customers a taster of its next adventure: designing hotels. In a way, then, it's the lobby of the first Lola James Harper hotel which will open in the department store, with furniture, a café, a recording studio and a basketball court – a sort of life-size test run for the franchise which will be developed by Accor and the founder of Lola James Harper a year from now.