September 28, 2016

Miami’s luxe Missoni Baia residences, set to debut in 2019, will be decked out with the fashion brand’s famous zigzags.

By Heidi Mitchell September 28, 2016

Coco Chanel once famously said, “Fashion is architecture.”

But in 2016, the reverse rings true.

Top houses are going beyond clothes, bags, jewelry and beauty to design haute home goods and luxury real estate. Why just wear a Giorgio Armani suit when you could also lounge on an Armani sofa in an Armani hotel or residence — essentially living inside the label?
Armani and Versace were both pioneers of such fashion-branded lifestyle projects — the former with its Armani/Casa collection in 2000 and subsequent hotel-residence in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (the world’s tallest building) and the latter with its 72-condo Palazzo Versace (which debuted in 2000 on Australia’s Gold Coast, with a new spinoff in Dubai) and a vibrant housewares line with German porcelain-maker Rosenthal.

But the trend is now suddenly taking off in the States.

Nadia Meratla, SVP of design & development at Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, adds that it’s not a huge leap from tailoring clothing to tailoring a home. “Big fashion brands are so elastic,” she says. “They’re not going to stop at jewelry and cosmetics. If they put their name on a tangible, high-value asset like real estate, that’s making a statement.”

That statement has clearly been embraced in Miami, where a vivid art and food scene has been luring jet-setters on the hunt for hard assets with some serious style. Fendi Casa curated the interiors for the Fendi Château Residences, in nearby Surfside; Missoni is lending its iconic zigzags to Missoni Baia, its first branded residences.

The 146 homes at that Miami property won’t be ready until 2019, but are already selling off of plans for about $2 million to $4 million, with square footage ranging from 2,400 to 3,600. The interiors of the Asymptote Architecture-designed building are officially credited to New York’s Paris Forino, but “the Missonis are completely woven in,” says Alicia Cervera, head of sales for the luxury address.

Read the full article here: http://nypost.com/2016/09/28/you-can-live-in-a-home-designed-by-armani-fendi-or-missoni/