On a recent morning, Alexis Mabille showed up bright and early on the Champs-Elysées looking a bit bleary-eyed. And with good reason: he had just a few days left to deliver no fewer than two dozen party dresses for a megawatt wedding, and wrap up his biggest interior project to date, the nearly year-long renovation of the legendary cabaret hall Lido 2. On top of which he’d spent a sleepless night tending to a sick cat.
Even so, the designer was ebullient as he entered the cabaret—whose landmark modernist façade faces the planned Louis Vuitton hotel—and sauntered down an LED-lined entrance hall longer than many a Paris runway. As of last week, the entryway was lit-up with the first of its rotating video installation; the plan is that they will change depending on the event or the season. (A Jules Verne-esque installation, complete with snow machine, is lined up for Christmas). That and other pre-attractions are meant to catch the eye—and Instagrams—of the 350,000 or so people who walk down the Champs-Elysées on a typical day.
Photo: Francis Amiand
Photo: Francis Amiand
“There was no way we could transform such a Parisian institution into something basic, but we also didn’t want to just do a traditional renovation,” says Mabille, who counts Le Boeuf Sur le Toit, Cipriani Saint Tropez, and Kaspia Los Angeles among his recent projects. “We wanted to do something completely immersive, in collaboration with top video specialists, so that people can see a spectacle even when the Lido is closed,” he adds, motioning to where red velvet curtains would be hung to privatize gala dinners and film, theater, or fashion events.
What began in February as a minor facelift blossomed into a full-blown gut renovation as the architect Philippe Pumain, Lido director Jean-Luc Choplin, and Mabille tapped armies of specialized artisans to give the 1,000-seat venue the intimacy of a bijou Parisian concert hall.
Photo: Francis Amiand