Hasta La Ideas

Known for architecturally-inspired shoes based on iconic structures—from Eames chairs to Stealth bombers—United Nude’s new Manhattan flagship embraces a similarly radical design concept.

More evocative of nightclub than shoe store, the Dark Shop’s all-black interior and a curved, pulsating LED light wall lay the frame for the sculptural shoes on display.

Enhancing the otherworldly feeling of the store, a dark sculptural mass—an abstraction of a Lamborghini Countach—greets customers as they enter the space. Its atypical form is the result of the brand’s signature lo-res design process, which “makes existing objects even more beautiful by envisioning them with 3D software in a lower resolution.”

Designed by United Nude’s creative director, architect Rem D Koolhaas (nephew and namesake of the Dutch starchitect), the store reflects the brand’s vigorously forward-thinking attitude. Koolhaas hopes the theatrical boutique will allow people “to fully understand the brand and get the total United Nude experience.”

After occupying a small space in Manhattan next to its former sister brand Terra Plana on the charming Elizabeth Street for a few years, United Nude now has a dramatic store that measures up to the high style stakes of its futuristic shoe designs—on Noho’s burgeoning Bond Street no less.