KHAITE MERCER ST

Address

165 Mercer Street New York, NY 10012

Store hours

Monday - Saturday: 11AM - 7PM
Sunday: 12PM - 6PM

Contact Us

For appointment bookings, please contact mercer@khaite.com.

The first standalone KHAITE retail store is in and of New York, occupying the ground and subterranean floors of the historic cast-iron building at 165 Mercer Street in SoHo. It is an invitation to experience the play of contrasts, American ease, transformative details, and darker edges that define KHAITE while propelling it forward.


Built in 1871, 165 Mercer was designed by architect Henry Fernbach, who was known for his cast-iron facades. The storefront is dignified by fluted Corinthian columns, with projecting cornices delineating four upper floors. Topped by an Italianate cast-iron modillioned cornice, the building once housed furriers and apparel factories. After those industries moved uptown following World War I, it was converted to a parking garage and attracted gangster-run enterprises, including what one federal government official described in 1939 as "the largest bootleg ring since Prohibition." A 2018 renovation left the building's retail floors ripe for reimagining.

The design of the store aligns with the consummate materiality of KHAITE as well as the industrial origins and creative legacy of SoHo, where a pivotal generation of artists forged their identities in light-filled lofts with found materials. Spaces are shaped into volumes, while elemental qualities highlight the dynamic nature of the environment, which is constantly recalibrated by shifting natural light and bodies in motion.


The defining materials are those of the ultimate city: steel and glass. Surfaces of poured concrete, troweled cement, and custom plaster give the spaces a carved-out appearance, as part of a tendency toward thoughtful reduction. Linearity is balanced by curves of steel that are by turns monumental and nimble, from hot-rolled structures and twisting shelves to the bent tubing of hang bars and the bowed doors of the three fitting rooms. Shiro Kuramata’s Sing Sing armchairs combine swooping chrome frames with undulating seats of steel-wire mesh.


A signature feature of the store is the smooth-trunked evergreen tree (Bucida buceras), known as the "Shady Lady," located deep within the space. Appearing to emerge from the ground below, it provides guests with a way to orient themselves in space and time, in relation to the busy street outside, the sanctuary within, and the changing seasons.