C Magazine and Givenchy Toast Its Striking Rodeo Drive Flagship

The celebration encompassed the multilevel Frank Lloyd Wright building

Words by ELIZABETH VARNELL

Givenchy gathered a trove of guests on Wednesday, November 20, at its first permanent West Coast boutique for a cocktail party with C Magazine. The celebration was held inside the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed building on Rodeo Drive, which the house meticulously restored. Valerie Leon, Givenchy president of the Americas, joined C Magazine founder Jennifer Smith inside the nearly 800-square-foot space housing Fall/Winter 2024 women’s and men’s ready-to-wear collections and Pre-Spring 2025 looks along with shoes, bags, jewelry, and accessories. Visible from inside the mirrored rooms, archival tiger-print fabric once decorating the house founder’s home covered stairs and upholstery. Rows of boots, including multiple heights of Shark Lock designs, beckoned as temperatures in Beverly Hills dropped. The French house tapped Victor Fuentes and Flora Chou, whose respective firms worked on Wright’s San Francisco commercial building, to restore the space, and guests crossed original diamond-scored concrete floors in Wright’s signature red as they entered the party. They also got a first look at the cascading plants and other greenery initially favored by the revered architect growing outside the building once again.

Leon, who fell in love with the space’s architecture, noted how thrilled she was to have uncovered so many original elements and to have the house’s flag flying from a restored spire atop the building. As Mei Kwok took to the turntables and hors d’oeuvres by Yann Nury made the rounds, guests including Elaine Irwin, Emma Brooks, Dan Brown, Marta Pozzan, Cole Winarick, SouKeyna Diouf, Sara Walker, Nick Wooster, Emma Mossman, George Kotsiopoulos, Christian Stroble, Jack Wright, Zoi Lerma, Eric Buterbaugh, Oliver Furth, Cylus Sandoval, Hema Persad, Kathe Clements, Beverly Hills Mayor Lester Friedman, Ross Cassidy, and Natalia Bonifacci got a look at the vibrant constellation of rooms nodding to the French house’s embrace of Wright’s visionary design in conversation with its own archive and new launches.