What could be more fitting as a symbol of rebirth in the City of Light, than a golden sun streaming spiralling metal rays? That’s the resplendent installation that Louis Vuitton visual creative director Faye Mcleod conceived for the facade of the maison’s new Peter Marino-designed Paris flagship. The store is spread across two historic hôtel particuliers – designed in 1714 by Versailles architect Jules Hardouin- Mansart – and is located in the Place Vendôme, where the young founder of the storied house first opened his trunk shop 160 years ago.

It’s a space that reflects the evolution of a house, which began as a specialist luggage supplier to aristocrats, including the Empress Eugénie de Montijo. The new two-storey boutique boasts not just leather goods, textiles, fragrance, jewellery and men’s and women’s ready to wear, but also its first savoir-faire corner, and its only dedicated home for its Objets Nomades collection of travel-inspired products. Each light-filled floor is connected by a staircase carved from 18th-century stone, complete with sleek glass balustrades, suspended by stainless steel cables.

‘I thought I would juxtapose a modern aesthetic to everything within the walls and restore as beautifully and faithfully as possible the exterior,’ Marino explains of the space’s design elements. ‘The balance between modern and old, is for me, what Paris is all about’.This duality, too, is a reflection of Louis Vuitton.