Know your customers, know your audience, but stay true to yourself and your gut instinct.
Colette is one of those stores that ultimately defines the “cool & hip” factor, one that makes me feel like the least “in” person on the planet. To have conducted an interview with them, came with great surprise and absolute pleasure. Guillaume Salmon, Colette’s PR Director, couldn’t have been sweeter and absolutely kind. With Karl Lagerfeld’s book sitting on its entrance counter and cool gadgets that reeled me back to Harajuku, Tokyo, I was mesmerized, as I always have been the numerous times I previously stepped foot inside the store. When I witnessed a glass case of Beats by Dre Headphones, pristinely displayed in all of its bright colors, I was suddenly sunken in the memory of my first meeting with Interscope Records and Dr. Dre to make this product come to life.
Accompanied with a Phillippe Starck designed water bottle sitting pretty on our table, Guillaume and I discussed the very idea of movement…of energy and feeling. I quickly understood that success of any product, concept or simply a store; rests upon a constant revamp. Know your customers, know your audience, but stay true to yourself and your gut instinct.
After the interview, I strolled through Place Vendôme and Rue Saint-Honoré in a borrowed vintage dress (from my best local Parisian friend and roommate at the time.) I was once again, reminded of why I loved Paris so much, and why it resides so closely to my heart. Regardless of where I am in the world, this city continues to surprise me, with creativity oozing of inspiration in every cobblestone, pillar and monument. Guillaume was right, an experience after Colette, one can only be left with sheer comprehension of the idea in making Paris bright, within the City of Lights.
Read more of my interview with Guillaume at Colette here.
Happy travels,
