Set on the hilltops of Los Angeles, the fabled Flamingo Estate – a sprawling 1940s Spanish-style home surrounded by a lush orchard and gardens – has for close to eight decades provided an Edenic getaway for nature-loving hedonists looking to escape the city’s urban sprawl.
Current owner, Australia-born Richard Christiansen – featured in the Wallpaper* USA 300 and founder of New York-based agency Chandelier Creative – continues to encapsulate this back-to-earth philosophy with the home’s eponymous lifestyle brand, Flamingo Estate, first launched in 2020. ’A radical celebration of pleasure from the garden,’ describes Christiansen of the project, which comprises food, beauty and wellness products made from rare, nutrient-dense ingredients sourced from over 100 biodynamic farms. Inspiration is drawn from the Flamingo Estate’s gardens, while production favours slowness and transparency – each ingredient can be traced back to the farmer who planted it.
‘The Summer Body Shop’ by Mytheresa and Flamingo Estate
The East Hampton pop-up is housed in a former auto body shop
This month in East Hampton – just in time for the New York locale’s busy summer season – Christiansen and Flamingo Estate are teaming up with e-retailer Mytheresa on an ephemeral pop-up which combines fashion, food and wellness in a former auto body shop. ‘It might not seem obvious at first, but we’re both obsessed with the same things: craftsmanship, quality, and genuine conversations and friendships with the people who support us,’ he tells Wallpaper* of how ‘The Summer Body Shop’ collaboration first came about. ‘We noticed in many of our customers are the same – design-focused and very well-informed about what they like. The Mytheresa team are as obsessed with the quality of bags and shoes as I am with something like olive oil or honey.’
Such pantry essentials will be available in the ‘inconvenience store’ located in the front of the pop-up, which comprises 30 products that are ‘grown, harvested, and handmade by people who pay tribute to the slow, time-honoured, inconvenient way of making things,’ as Christiansen describes. ‘There’s spicy peppers hand-harvested in the mountains of Mexico, chocolate bars made by hand in Santa Barbara, and jars of strawberries from Harry’s Berries, the best grower in America. These are the things I want to use every day at home – from amazing morning coffee to caperberries in prosecco. In a world gone crazy for fast fashion and fast food, we are doing the opposite.
Flamingo Estate’s produced is sourced from producers using the ‘slow, time-honoured, inconvenient way of making things’
Elsewhere in the space – which is opposite the popular East Hampton station and decorated with tyres and classic auto parts – is a selection from Mytheresa’s vast product range of luxury fashion for men, women and children. ‘The idea was to build a different kind of body shop, everything you need for your “summer body” – from good food to great clothes,’ says Christiansen. ‘Come in for an oil change, but it’s for the best essential oils, lavender, sage, rosemary, and eucalyptus. Or come in for a tune-up, and it’s about great skin care. Everything feels very serious right now, and I think we all need to have a little bit of a wink.’
Of having a physical space for both Flamingo Estate and Mytheresa – which trade almost solely online – Christiansen says it is important for people to reach out and touch the products they are buying, whether fashion, food or those used on the body. ‘It’s not a linear business, and not super simple to understand because we are doing a lot of things,’ he says of Flamingo Estate. ‘I think the best way to explain that to other people is in a physical space. The Mytheresa customer also wants to touch something, feel something, or try something on. We’re also very tactile like that – you need to smell a candle, taste the olive oil, feel the texture of a bar of soap to really love it.’
Mytheresa’s array of luxury fashion is housed in the automobile-inspired main space
Adds Heather Kaminetsky, president of North America for Mytheresa: ‘The Summer Body Shop felt like the perfect “unexpected” moment to further bring this wonderful partnership to life. We wanted to bring to the sophisticated audience in the Hamptons a combined and truly unique immersive luxury experience – one that allows us to engage and inspire throughout the summer and to bring our curated offering to them in a more physical way.’
The locale – which is one of the United States’ most famous holiday spots – has personal resonance for Christiansen who formerly owned a property in the area where he kept bees and harvested honey. ‘I knew the area and its flowers and peculiarities. I’ve been fishing many times off the coast, and know the salt water and green fields,’ he says. ‘So I really wanted to follow the sun and come out east for summer.’
‘The Summer Body Shop’ by Mytheresa and Flamingo Estate is open Thursday–Sunday until July 30 2023 at 9 Railroad Avenue, East Hampton, New York.
The store runs through July, and features essentials for a Hamptons summer
-
Mexican designers show their metal at Gallery Collectional, Dubai‘Unearthing’ at Dubai’s Gallery Collectional sees Ewe Studio designers Manu Bañó and Héctor Esrawe celebrate Mexican craftsmanship with contemporary forms
-
At The Manner, New York has a highly fashionable new living roomThe Manner, a new hopsitality experience by Standard International in the heart of SoHo, triples up as a hotel, private residence, and members’ club
-
First look – Bottega Veneta and Flos release a special edition of the Model 600Gino Sarfatti’s fan favourite from 1966 is born again with Bottega Veneta’s signature treatments gracing its leather base
-
Kohler plunges into the world of wellness with an ice bath for your homeKohler has teamed up with Remedy Place to design an ice bath for the home, marking the brand’s first move into the wellness space
-
Henry Zankov is the knitwear non-conformist making fashion’s favourite sweaters‘It's about pushing the boundaries of what knitwear can be,’ says Henry Zankov, whose exuberant New York-based label is already beloved by fashion insiders
-
New York Fashion Week S/S 2025 highlights: Tory Burch to Michael KorsWallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss selects the best of New York Fashion Week S/S 2025 in our ongoing round-up, from a reinvention of sportswear at Tory Burch to Michael Kors’ Italian escape
-
What is the future of New York Fashion Week? The city’s independent designers weigh inAs New York Fashion Week begins today, Nicole DeMarco catches up with the city’s rising designers to talk about the positives, pressures and pitfalls of showing at NYFW, and asks: can you still ‘make it’ in New York City?
-
Gucci filled Tate Modern’s Tanks with thousands of plants for its latest Cruise showGucci’s Cruise 2025 show, the first by Sabato De Sarno, saw a ‘tapestry’ of plants fill the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Tanks in London’s Tate Modern as a dramatic backdrop to the show
-
Inside Sterling Ruby and OTW by Vans’ skatewear-inspired collaborationAmerican artist Sterling Ruby and OTW by Vans’ footwear collaboration was revealed in Los Angeles, backdropped by a specially constructed skate park created with PLAYLAB, INC
-
Inside John Lobb’s timelessly elegant New York flagship, a trove for shoe loversJohn Lobb opens its 700 Madison Avenue store, a walnut wood-clad space filled with sophisticated footwear for any occasion or terrain
-
Comme Si’s first store in Brooklyn is a design lover’s temple to socksSock and loungewear brand Comme Si launches a temporary Brooklyn store, a rich and inviting space created with designers Elias Studio, John Sohn and Yoonjee Kwak
