Departures Dispatch
Angelo Galasso opens in New York’s Plaza Hotel
When the Plaza’s grand, ornate Edwardian Room opens its doors this week for the first time since the 1990s, the space will be - in a sense -coming full circle. Originally opened in 1907 as a gentlemen’s café, the 3,800 square-foot room, with its paneled oak wainscoting, elaborately trussed ceiling and expansive comer views over Central Park and Fifth Avenue, has reinvented itself several times. Only now, though, is the space returning to its roots as a particular lure for men. Its new incarnation: the debut U.S. flagship of luxury menswear designer Angelo Galasso.
Galasso’s bold ready-to-wear collections - which employ exotic skins, vivid colors and prints and signature details like hexagonal shirt buttons - might not at first seem the most obvious choice for the formal Spanish Renaissance Revival space (a top hat and cutaway coat might seem more at home). But as celebrity fans like Al Pacino, David Beckham and Jay-Z know, Galasso’s dramatic style is matched with a bespoke designer’s attention to craftsmanship and detail. Every item in the new boutique - including ready-to-wear jackets, shirts, suits, belts, watches and even underwear - can be customized to order by Galasso’s cadre of on-site tailors. Of course, made-to-measure designs can take a few weeks to complete, since all of Galasso’s fabrics, materials and assemblage - like the retail shop’s couches, tables, rugs and even racks - are “Fatto in Italia” (made in Italy).
