Colette concept store to be revived for Virgil Abloh exhibition at Grand Palais
From September 30 to October 9, 2025, the iconic concept store Colette will reopen its doors as a pop-up store for the “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” exhibition.
The Parisian concept store Colette, created by Colette Roussaux and Sarah Andelman at 213 rue Saint-Honoré, is an absolute benchmark in the fashion world. Alongside Corso Como in Milan, it pioneered the rise of a conceptual retail offering, freely mixing ready-to-wear collections; fashion accessories; beauty products; books; magazines; music and high-tech gadgets.
It closed in 2017 for reasons that were never fully disclosed. The store is now being resurrected from its ashes during Paris Fashion Week in September 2025.
The opportunity arises from the “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” exhibition, in partnership with Nike. The first major European exhibition dedicated to the work of the designer, who passed away in 2021, traces nearly twenty years of creation. It features 20,000 archival pieces including prototypes, sketches, objects, images and creations from his personal collections.
The Colette installation, conceived in collaboration with Virgil Abloh Securities, Virgil Abloh's creative label, captures the spirit of the original store. Visitors will find fashion and design items, rare books and unexpected objects.
This temporary revival will bring the rue Saint-Honoré concept store back to life with exclusive creations by Virgil Abloh's close collaborators.
The brands Babylon, Been Trill, Bstroy, Cactus Plant Flea Market and SP5DER are all rooted in streetwear culture. This also includes the Cactus Jack label, founded by Travis Scott, who is a rapper, producer, performer, businessman and fashion influencer.
L’Art de L’Automobile draws its aesthetic references from luxury cars. The Stray Rats label is inspired by underground subculture and DIY (do it yourself). Finally, Futura Laboratories is a design studio also involved in fashion.
Among the limited-edition pieces, Colette is reissuing Virgil Abloh's take on the Braun BC02. This is a small, compact, square travel alarm clock inspired by the work of Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs, pioneers of German minimalist design in the 1960s and 1970s.
Also available is the French translation of Abloh-isms. The book is part of the “isms” series, which are collections of thoughts from influential artists and thinkers, edited by Larry Warsh.
Selected quotes include: “You don’t have to invent from scratch; sometimes, modifying an existing object by just 3 percent is enough to make it something new.” And, “The future of fashion is not just in the big houses, it’s in the hands of young designers who are tinkering with what they have.”
This article was translated to English using an AI tool.
FashionUnited uses AI language tools to speed up translating (news) articles and proofread the translations to improve the end result. This saves our human journalists time they can spend doing research and writing original articles. Articles translated with the help of AI are checked and edited by a human desk editor prior to going online. If you have questions or comments about this process email us at info@fashionunited.com