A Grand Entrance : Hundreds Trumpet the Arrival of Palatial Escada Boutique
When the palatial Escada store opened in Beverly Hills this week, it was with four trumpets blowing, 20 foot men scurrying and a red carpet rolled out for hundreds of black-tie guests. There was also a bevy of models to present the U.S. premiere of Escada’s spring collection.
It was almost 10 years to the day that company founders Margaretha and Wolfgang Ley checked into New York’s Plaza hotel without any fanfare. For eight days, they introduced retailers to the Escada line “in the bedroom,” recalls Swedish-born Margaretha.
It is her sophisticated, often whimsical and brightly colored designs--captured on luxurious fabrics--that have turned the Munich-based company into an international success.
A former model, with the reed-thin figure to prove it, Margaretha says customers tend to buy each concept--including the shoes, blouse, belt, scarf, earrings, gloves and handbag--exactly as she designs it.
Southern California women who can afford head-to-toe Escada (tailored jackets, for example, run $750 to $1,600) will now have access to fresh supplies every two weeks. The windows of the red, white and gold jewel, in the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel, will signal the arrivals from Germany with preordained displays.
As with the massive triple-framed gold doors and most of the interior design, Wolfgang says the displays are mandated by Margaretha and repeated in Escada boutiques around the world.
A perfectionist, she arrived in Beverly Hills three days before the opening-night gala to dictate merchandise placement and initiate cosmetic changes.
“They are all the details a designer’s eye would see,” says retail vice president Mitchell F. Simbal, who was watching as the elegant executive ordered mannequin platforms cut down from 12 inches to 4 and had fixtures removed to make the interior “less claustrophobic.”
Despite her designer’s eye for color, Margaretha wears only black, white or blue, explaining: “I live in color all the time so I try to keep myself out of it.” Any bright splashes come from the exquisite jewelry, all presents from her husband, around her neck, wrists and fingers.
One of the larger pieces is a heart-shaped pendant. Patterned with precious gems, it is a reminder of the heart motifs she uses in her collections and the shape chosen for the Escada perfume bottle.
These days, Wolfgang keeps a gold-finished heart in his lapel, a souvenir from the Paris perfume launch. The event was at the Longchamp racetrack--a fitting locale considering it was a racehorse called Escada, discovered during a photo shoot for their first catalogue, that bestowed his name on the Ley’s empire.
