It's impossible for me to look at these photos and not think of September 11th. I was display manager at Armani Casa and working on this photo shoot when the towers fell. Pictured here is Princess Alexandre of Greece, Mr. Armani's muse at the time. As the gravity of the situation became more apparent, she canceled the shoot and rushed to be with her children. 

I recall the sound of towers falling: one floor falling upon the next and the next and the next, pancaking it would come to be called. Shiny strands of steel falling to the ground like confetti, strangely beautiful and horrible. Hundreds standing on West Broadway staring at nothing.

Later that week I returned to the store and, like display artists throughout the city, hung a flag in the window.

The store before renovations

When my friend Virginia Baltzell asked me to help her design her new store in the Old City section of Philadelphia the first thing we did was strip away years of paint to reveal the original granite. It didn't matter that the restoration wasn't perfect, residual flecks of pain remained. The store, after all, was dealing in Tuscan antiquities and the pentimento suited our purpose. We stenciled her surname in crisp gold leaf atop the ruff hewn surface. The look was a perfect combination of Old City meets Old World.

The storefront after restoration. 

Exterior detail with window silkscreen

Interior detail: brocade silk with 1970s filigree screen