WE KNEW CONCEPT STORES CELEBRATING OBJECTS — NOW COME FUSION STORES DEDICATED TO EXPERIMENTATION

Spotted in Paris:Recently opened at 16 rue de Lancry, near Place de la République in Paris, HABILE. is a singular space combining a unisex ready-to-wear offer, upstairs, and a restaurant on the ground floor. The collection also features on the menu, allowing customers, while ordering a dish, to get a glimpse of the t-shirts, aprons, socks or jackets imagined by the brand. A wine cellar, a fine grocery and a privatisable space round out the offer. The two founders of the place — one from the restaurant world, the other from fashion — are already announcing future collaborations between fashion and food.

What to make of it?

Seemingly anecdotal, the emergence of an offer combining ready-to-wear and dining is in fact quite revealing of the way commerce must, from now on, be conceived: asspaces for experimentationto meet today's appetite for surprise — a source of differentiation, certainly, but also asspaces for the expression of values,a reflection of a way of approaching life. A few years ago, the two founders of Habile would each have opened their own venture separately. By joining forces,they produce a new narrative and suggest new rules.While their crafts differ, the quality, traceability, and even sustainability of the raw materials they use matter as much in textiles as on the plate. Can dishes not be just as "iconic," or the result of a responsible approach, as a garment? Can the two not come together around a shared colour? The coming together of these two worlds, here made tangible by the intrusion of one onto the other's menu, opens the door toa new shared vocabulary and new forms of potential collaborationthat will stand as so many promises of new experiences for customers.

The L'Observatoire Cetelem article can be found here:

https://observatoirecetelem.com/loeil/on-a-connu-les-concept-stores-celebrant-les-objets-voici-a-present-les-fusion-stores-dedies-aux-experimentations