There is a brand-new place to buy Saint Laurent in New York as the label opened its second store in the city yesterday. And situated in ultra-hip SoHo, in downtown Manhattan, the new outpost is a nice contrast to the older upscale store at East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Women’s Wear Daily reports that Saint Laurent creative director, Hedi Slimane, pictured, was attracted to the 4,000-square-foot  SoHo store due to historic architectural elements like the tin ceilings and concrete floors, which have been kept intact in a sympathetic makeover. 

Slimane personally oversaw every detail of the refurbishment and refit, and has filled the space with highly collectable, very cool modernist furniture as well as towering glass fixtures with horizontal and vertical shelves that display the brand’s ready-to-wear (mainly the permanent collection at the moment as pre-fall hasn’t dropped yet), accessories and jewellery. 

The clean, modern design that seeks to incorporate the most important aesthetics of the 20th century in a slickly contemporary setting echoes the branding changes Slimane has implemented since taking over from Stefano Pilati as creative director. He famously dropped the Yves, changing the name to just Saint Laurent, and he made over the logo, using the Helvetica font, a typeface synonymous with the brand’s 1960s heyday.

The store’s palette of black and white is distinctly Slimane too; both in his clothing and in his photography, the designer has always been drawn to monochrome.
   
This New York opening is just the latest in a series of retail developments for Saint Laurent. The brand recently opened a new store in Paris and come autumn, there will be a new Saint Laurent store opening in Chicago and a new menswear-only Saint Laurent boutique in San Francisco. 

All this investment is surely supported by the strong sales figures the company is currently enjoying; despite an initially unsure industry response to Slimane’s Saint Laurent vision, the brand is performing well.   

The new Soho store, before it opened yesterday