CULT GAIA MIAMI FLAGSHIP | Sugarhouse

The building itself is an axially planned structure that appropriates tradition to meet the aesthetics of Cult Gaia. The exterior A-Frame structure breaks from the typically flat architecture of Miami’s Design District. Taking its shape from local casitas, the store is immediately familiar and welcoming. A 1800-piece Tree of Life tile mural by artist Michael Chandler covers the facade, commissioned by Sugarhouse in response to Larian Hekmat’s heritage and Henri Rousseau’s painting The Dream. The hand-painted ceramic mural depicts a silhouetted tree with its branches extending across the storefront, featuring stylized vegetation, birds and flower-crowned nymphs. Chandler referenced Indian textile versions from the 18th century and actual botanicals to create something that is part nature, part imagination, part fantasy, part reality - a homage to Cult Gaia’s ethos. Directly connected to the fantastical nature of The Dream, Chandler transforms Rousseau’s landscape into something befitting of a brand named after the Greek goddess of earth: the singular nude becomes many earth goddesses, who are one with the landscape rather than observers of it. Above the tree, at the apex of the store, a sun shines brightly, offering warmth and protection to the world below. The entire composition is created in tones of blue, much like the lapis lazuli hues which adorn Persian mosques. Walking through the arched central door, visitors are greeted with a motto: “May all the doors of the world always be open to you.” The saying is personal to Larian Hekmat, whose mom repeated it to her as a child. The interior is divided into three primary sections, with a concealed fourth at the north end. Upon entrance, visitors find themselves in an open room blanketed in creamy hues of Bianco Avorio Limestone and Bianco Santa Caterina Travertine. Clothes hang neatly from unlacquered brass rods reminiscent of Cult Gaia’s jewelry, next to custom biomorphic wall mirrors by New Vernacular Studio. Passing through this first room, visitors arrive at a central dressing area made of one hundred individually chiseled sandstone blocks. Designed to reference rock-cut cave temples, the structures provide privacy while also allowing merchandise to be displayed within their illuminated niches. Moving through this threshold, visitors reach a second room which mirrors the first. A bar is hidden beyond a brass passage door on the far wall. The store is punctuated by two domes in the primary rooms which each open to a seven-foot-wide frameless oculus, allowing light to flood the space. The domes and oculi trace their lineage to the Pantheon, the Ancient Roman temple for all gods. In this way, they reinforce Cult Gaia’s belief that everyone is a goddess of earth. Directly underneath the domes are two towering structures. The first is a twelve-foot concrete sculpture by Larian Hekmat’s mom, artist Angela Larian. An elongated, Giacometti-like female nude that soars toward the heavens, the work is a foil to the nymphs from the façade and her angularity is intentional: like the brand, this is a fully composed, confident, and in control Gaia. Underneath the second dome is a fourteen-foot-tall Banyan tree. Planted within a nineteen-foot serpentine sofa designed by Brandi Howe, the Banyan echoes the Tree of Life from the façade and creates a balanced experience for visitors. Like the sacred tree from Buddhism, it invites visitors to sit and achieve their own awakening within this temple of fashion.

Photography: Kris Tamburello

Website: https://kristamburello.com/