Blue Mountain School is the latest offering from James Brown and Christie Fels, founders of cult Shoreditch store Hostem. When the new space opens next month, it will offer immaculately curated fashion, dining, music, design and art spread across six floors on the site of the former Hostem on Redchurch Street.
‘Retail in its current form is dead,’ claims Brown, who has eschewed clothes on rails in favour of a Hostem Archive which houses garments, ceramics, art and objects in a double-height “viewing room”. Here, pieces from the likes of London weaver Amy Revier, US furniture designer Tyler Hays and French artist Alexis Gautier are on permanent rotation and new objects and those from the entire Hostem archive will be added over time.
Since founding Hostem almost a decade ago, and New Road Residence, a private inn in Whitechapel in 2016, Brown and Fels have built a healthy network of collaborators. They worked with London architects 6a to create the Blue Mountain School space, and 6a in turn worked with perfumer Lyn Harris to create the Perfumer H atelier on the lower ground floor, where bespoke and seasonal fragrances are sold in hand-blown bottles. Two floors up is Hays, who designed a room filled with furniture and garments from his BDDW and M.Crow labels.
At the heart of Blue Mountain School is Mãos – a kitchen and dining room founded by chef Nuno Mendes with Brown, executive chef of Chiltern Firehouse and the chef patron of Taberna do Mercado. Lucky diners get to sample his latest three-hour tasting menu. On the second floor are gallery spaces for rotating exhibitions. Select invitees will make up to Grace’s – the rooftop listening room. Here guests can get away from it all, and relax on a wisteria-covered terrace and soak up tunes supplied Low Company. On the third and fourth floors Maastricht designer Valentin Loellmann has designed an immersive space, incorporating one-off furniture pieces and a suspended copper staircase.
