As a designer known for building loyalty rather than buzz, Nili Lotan chose an unexpected way to introduce her latest boutique: a packed movie night. Before opening the new Southampton store, Lotan partnered with the Southampton Playhouse for a community screening of the Rolling Stones’ film Stones at the Max, inviting neighbors to gather around one of the influences that’s long informed her work.
Now open permanently at 30 Main Street (a sibling to the East Hampton location at 38 Main St), the boutique is Nili Lotan’s eighth standalone U.S. location and second in the Hamptons. More significantly, it’s the first store to bring every category together in one place, from women’s and men’s ready-to-wear to denim, handbags, shoes, and an expanded swimwear offering tailored to life on the East End. Visualized by the founder in collaboration with Marmol Radziner, vintage mid-century furnishings sit side-by-side with custom pieces inspired by Austrian-American architect Rudolph Schindler, while traces of Hungarian-American designer Marcel Breuer‘s influence are found throughout.
The designer has noted her desire for a place where guests can walk in wearing flip-flops and a swimsuit without feeling out of place, while still experiencing the level of craftsmanship associated with the label. “It is a neighborhood store, but also a world of its own—one that reflects a time of leisure while still offering the highest level of design and craft,” she shares.
Just as well then that the opening began with a laid-back film screening rather than a blowout party. Music has long shaped Lotan’s collections, and the evening melded that influence with a broader, passionate commitment to the local community of friends and supporters that she’s invested in—and that have returned the favor.
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