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"   Photo: IMAXtree   Most &amp;quot;construction parties&amp;quot; have a keg, a boom box, and a throng of fratty guys tearing wallpaper while singing along to Guns N&amp;#039; Roses. But last night in Soho, Carven traded Coors Lite for champagne when they celebrated their imminent boutique on Mercer Street with a flock of well-clad fashion folk. (Hard hats? No. Spike-heeled boots? Oui.) We spoke with Carven&amp;#039;s French designer Guillaume Henry about the almost-ready retail space, the perfect candy, and his imaginary BFF. (Lorde, obviously!)  Welcome to New York! What&amp;#039;s the first thing you do when you get here? Oh, it&amp;#039;s super-clich\u00E9 but I love Central Park. I love going there as soon as I arrive in New York City and walking around. I know it&amp;#039;s cheesy though. It&amp;#039;s like a New Yorker coming to Paris and saying, &amp;quot;Oh, I love Montmartre!&amp;quot; You could have opened a Carven store anywhere and your fans would have followed. Why did you come downtown? Because downtown is so dynamic, you have such a mix of art and style and different kinds of girls. Here on Mercer Street, I know it&amp;#039;s a super-dynamic and super-fashionable place. It&amp;#039;s nice to be in a really creative and really inspiring district, style wise, where we can make a real connection to actual customers, and people looking for great clothes.  You sound like you&amp;#039;re an expert\u2014like you watch women when they&amp;#039;re shopping. I do! I do all the time. And that&amp;#039;s why when we were thinking of this shop, I said, &amp;quot;Okay, we need furniture so people can sit down. And we need almost &amp;#039;boxes&amp;#039; inside the space\u2014different rooms where you can see the different clothing deliveries and see the different stories that come from each of the garments.&amp;quot; I was imagining what shoppers would want to do in here. Your fluffy pink coat has gotten a lot of attention this season\u2014and it&amp;#039;s already been copied by fast fashion chains. Why do you think it made such a big impact? You know, when I started working on the winter collection, I wanted something super-warm but sugary at the same time. So it&amp;#039;s woolen but it&amp;#039;s light and fluffy, too. You know at Carven, it&amp;#039;s all about the contradictions! I love opposites, and I think lots of people, especially creative people, respond to that. So I was like, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s make a huge coat that looks like candy.&amp;quot; When I first said that, I don&amp;#039;t think people really &amp;quot;got&amp;quot; it, though! I was like, &amp;quot;Make it fun! Make it like candy!&amp;quot; I adore candy, if you can&amp;#039;t tell. French candy is pretty amazing. No, you have the best in America! You have Jelly Belly jelly beans! Whenever anyone tells me they&amp;#039;re visiting New York, I beg them to bring me back some Jelly Bellies. I love all the flavors because you can mix them, and you can make your own new flavors when you put them together, you know? Have you had the &amp;quot;Buttered Popcorn&amp;quot; flavor? No! I haven&amp;#039;t but I have heard all about it. But no, I&amp;#039;m not trying it\u2014non, merci!  Who are you obsessed with right now? I can&amp;#039;t stop playing this singer named Lorde on my iPod. I love her. She&amp;#039;s cute, she&amp;#039;s super cool, and that song &amp;quot;Royals&amp;quot; is fantastic. Maybe here everyone&amp;#039;s into her, but in France, she&amp;#039;s just starting to get really big. I would love to meet her. You could bribe her with a giant pink coat, then ask if she&amp;#039;ll sing during your next catwalk show? I would love her to be at the show! But I hate the idea of running to the new, cool thing just because it&amp;#039;s new and cool. We want to keep it real. So if I meet her, if we become friends, then we can do something together! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/news/a23993/carven-guillaume-henry-interview/?src=global_footer>