Tomas Maier is only too happy to help the Design District further establish itself as Miami’s hottest gathering spot — as long as Pottery Barn stays far, far away. “This is the unfortunate thing that happened to Lincoln Road,” he says. “If you want a mall, go to the mall. The Design District is a very different type of experience.”
The German-born fashion designer decamped from his previous retail location, an idyllic cottage he opened in 2003 on the bay side of Miami Beach, for good reason: It was about to be torn down, a victim of the unending march of progress. Maier already had fallen in love with the Design District, however, after frequent visits to check out showrooms like Luminaire or to hang at restaurants like Michael’s or Pacific Time. “It’s grown into this great destination, which suits us well,” Maier says. “Stylish people seek out stylish neighborhoods, and so it was a nice fit for us to be situated among all these fabulous galleries and restaurants and furniture showrooms.”
Still, Maier also loves a little romance about his locations, so when the space at 170 Northeast 40th Street became available, he grabbed it. “It used to be the farmhouse of a pineapple plantation 100 years ago,” Maier explains. “I like a sense of history about my spaces; I’m European, born in Europe and lived there most of my life, so I’m very hooked up to the past. I also like the mix and the feeling of having different rooms, so each space offers a different flavor for the con-sumer. And while the previous space also had a mix of rooms, this is much bigger and feels much more contemporary.”
Indeed, at 6,000 square feet, his Design District store marks Maier’s largest location to date. Such an abundance of space allows the designer to expand on the philosophies he established with his first Miami location (and, subsequently, a Palm Beach location that debuted last year), I have always loved doing a book room, and here we will be able to offer more choices; we always sell a lot of art books and architecture books, so, of course, this makes sense in a Design District store,” he says. “And we’ve never really had the room before, so now I have the opportunity to do a gallery space upstairs. We’ll do changing exhibitions and keep the space very open — it may be photography or drawings one month, furniture design the next. You can go in so many different directions because Miami has many faces, but we’ll always bring in something that makes sense to Miami. Photographer Karine Laval’s work adorned the gallery space when the store opened in mid-November.”
Maier is equally devoted to the idea of bringing in other product lines that round out his aesthetic: There’s a scent collection, with lines ranging from Serge Lutens to Dyptique to Comme des Garcons, as well as tableware from Meissen and teas from Mariage Freres in Paris. “I also want to offer things we haven’t explored much in the past, such as belts and handbags, and codesign them with people who are specialists in their fields; there is a lot of freedom to this idea, and yet they will work with everything else,” Maier says.
And lest we forget, there are the clothes. It’s a testament to Maier’s devotion to creating a complete, multisensory experience that, when asked about his store’s vibe, he doesn’t leap wholeheartedly into an explanation of his latest collection; rather, he needs to be prodded a little. Maier’s spring/summer collection of swimwear and ready-to-wear is an ode to skin tones, all crafted with his signature minimalism in fabrics that feel great against the skin, such as cashmere, angora, and silk jersey. “There are also little touches of bright mixed with all those skin tones,” Maier notes. “We dye all our own colors, everything’s custom, so you find colors you don’t see everywhere else, and this also allows you to create a mix-and-match feel with all the other pieces in the store, looks that work for your needs and your body type.”
Part of the charm of having Maier in Miami is precisely that he treats his South Florida locations with a dose of passion that might cause you to think these are his only retail outlets. But Tomas Maier can be found in about 150 locations worldwide. Fold in Maier’s ongoing work as creative director for Bottega Veneta, and it’s all the more impressive that he’s so hands-on with his hometown boutiques. “I want to be very involved in everything that goes on in these stores, because I spend so much time in them,” says Maier, who splits his days between Miami, Milan, New York, and Palm Beach and main-tains corporate offices in Delray Beach. “And with the added space, our Miami location has become a flagship for us. You’ll find a bigger assortment of our collection here than anywhere else in the world, and having the biggest store also means we’ve grown the collection. You’ll find colors here that you won’t find among our retail offerings in Milan, for example. This is a very knowledgeable customer who walks through our doors, and we want to make sure they have a very special experience.”
Next up for Maier will be a new store in the Hamptons this spring. The location? “We found this wonderful old diner from the 1930s,” he reports. “I like the charm of that, similar to the charm of the Design District store, and our Palm Beach store is located in the old workshop of Addison Mizner. These are wonderful stories that add so much to the flavor of a location. Why would you want to go against the charm of a city? I like when you can find something with personality and character. I need that about my retail locations. I’d rather have that than a rectangular box in a mall. I wouldn’t know what to do with that.”
And with that, Maier is getting ready to walk through his newest space again but not before noting that, when the time is right, he’ll return to Miami Beach. “That was where everything started, so it will always be important to me,” he says. “Maybe when the economy picks up again, the idea of a small outpost on Miami Beach, I don’t think that’s impossible at all. But I’m having fun with the Design District store. It’s open and airy, with wood-plank floors and a little Japanese garden in back. You simply get a good feeling walking through this space; and shouldn’t we all want to feel that way these days?”