Opera Chic *hearts* Nicolas Ghesquière, that gawky gallic guy, for so many reasons -- not just because he designs cool stuff for hippie Manga droid girls from the outer space of fashion, but also because he totally digs the glowing palms of L.A. -- and Matsuhisa's sushi, and Arcana bookstore down in Santa Monica -- as much as Opera Chic does (I know, I know, OC is a peculiar New Yorker that way, she really likes L.A., but it's not as bad as many New Yorkers think it is, a minor sin anyway, it's not as if she rooted for the Red Sox or something).
Shopping expeditions to Balenciaga's store in Milan a few steps from the Four Seasons, to manhandle the knits and look for the crazier stuff, are one of Opera Chic's more serious addictions here -- almost as bad as pastry runs at Panarello and Blue Diamond cappuccino of Torrefazione at 20 Corso Buenos Aires and risotto giallo meals at Trattoria Milanese.
It's not surprising, then, that Ghesquière chose to open his new store in one of OC's favorite shopping spots in L.A. -- on Melrose, just East of San Vicente, right next to Diane Von Furstenberg and Marc Jacobs and the little delicious Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella outpawst; and the new Balenciaga store is, as always, designed by his buddy Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, whom we love because she's real dorky and really quite and silently so far ahead than most of the rest of the design pack, she's skidding all over the place like Crash Bandicoot for design (she's also Jerome Bel's wife).
Among other things, as soon as OC is hired as General Manager of an opera house, she's going to commission a staging of Zemlinsky's shamefully overlooked Der Traumgörge, and we're totally hiring Gonzalez Foerster to design the production.
Back to Ghesquière; we even forgive him for dressing Helene Grimaud, who really should spend less time with her stylist and more time practicing -- because after all, Nick dresses one of the coolest women in the galaxy, Maggie Cheung, and he gets mad props for that.
We also don't take it personally that he only opened the L.A. store six months after OC visited L.A.