An ivy-covered facade on a triangular corner in Los Angeles’s West Hollywood marks a new flagship for KHAITE, a high-end clothing line by Catherine Holstein. The brand, sported by celebrities like Katie Holmes, Meghan Markle, and Rihanna, is known for offering femininity in modern, sleek styles. It’s no coincidence that the brand’s second flagship designed by Holstein’s husband, architect and actor Griffin Frazen, uses biophilic femininity on its exterior to pave the way for a mysterious and dark concept within.

The new brick-and-mortar opens with a portal of extruded steel frames. Cement, concrete, and plaster make up the walls and floors, broken up by floor-to-ceiling windows and pieces by Cini Boeri, Kazuhide Takahama, Poul Kjærholm, and Max Lamb.

Monolithic displays form the bulk of the interior and inform the navigation. They extend fully across the 22-foot span of of the room. Made up of cast-in-place concrete, the displays rest atop thin steel blades, balancing heavy with light.

The displays are broken up by mirrored columns that extend into a narrow ceiling slot, which glows with precisely cut beams of light through custom-engineered fixtures. Frazen paid close attention to the interplay of darkness and light to create an air of futuristic intrigue.

Case in point: the rear of the space is composed of sliding glass doors, ceramic printed with a gradient to reveal or conceal merchandise. Operating as partitions, doors, and veils, the panels softly diffuse the light from the facing windows, lightly illuminating the space like a bright fog, thanks to its unique finish.

The cherry on top is fittingly atop the rear of the flagship. Here light boxes diffuse illumination as if recalling a James Turrell artwork. The feature adds another layer to the ways Frazen makes light gently reflect, glow, and become absorbed within black and gray materials. The scene is sleek and contemporary, much like KHAITE.