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" The chunky wood table at the center of Jason Wu&amp;#039;s studio has seen a lot of history. It&amp;#039;s where the designer signed his first deal with Bergdorf Goodman, in 2008, making him a candidate for fashion-world stardom. And it&amp;#039;s where he helped sew beads and fabric petals onto the gown Michelle Obama wore to her husband&amp;#039;s inaugural ball. That took Wu from candidate to incumbent\u2014a young couturier with an elite clientele.  So when Wu moved to new offices in a former industrial building in Manhattan&amp;#039;s garment district, there was no way he was going to leave the table behind. &amp;quot;History is such an important part of what I do that it had to be a part of this space,&amp;quot; he says. Indeed, his clothes meld modern shapes with stylistic references that range from the dramatic ball gowns of Charles James to the neat, elegant tailoring of Coco Chanel. As the young designer explains, his clothes make their wearers appear &amp;quot;dressed up and dressed down at the same time.&amp;quot;  Wu knew he had to come up with a way to keep the long table from getting lost in the new office/atelier/showroom, which is five times bigger than his previous studio, located a few blocks away. The solution, says Wu, was to design a room around it. To do that, he enlisted Jesse Carrier, a New York decorator who has worked for a number of fashion-industry and media insiders. Wu had already commissioned architect Giancarlo Valle, but he needed someone, in Carrier&amp;#039;s words, &amp;quot;to take the edge off&amp;quot; the loftlike, raw-concrete-floored space. The room Carrier designed around the table is entered through a pair of 19th-century parlor doors, painted a shade Wu calls Geoffrey Beene\u2013gray, an homage to the gray-flannel pieces of the late fashion designer, one of Wu&amp;#039;s role models. A wall covering composed of the tinted pages of The New York Observer, created by Elizabeth Dow, a fabric and wallpaper maker, gives the room a pinkish patina, Wu observes. What he doesn&amp;#039;t say is that it also suggests news is being made here.  In fact, in the next year, Wu says, he plans to introduce a cosmetics line for Shiseido and a full line of accessories\u2014the start of a process that could easily make Jason as famous a first name as Ralph or Calvin.  &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m in the middle of a journey,&amp;quot; explains the soft-spoken Wu, wearing a simple Lanvin cardigan jacket. And designing his new headquarters, he says, was an important part of the trip.  Leaving nothing to chance, Wu visited dozens of spaces until he found one that lent itself to the open-plan office he envisioned. (In too many cases, the elevator was in the center, creating a U-shaped or O-shaped layout that felt claustrophobic.) It was also important for him to be in the heart of the garment district. &amp;quot;Across the street is one of our factories; all around us are fabric and trim stores,&amp;quot; Wu says. &amp;quot;Everything we need to do what we do is in this neighborhood.&amp;quot;  The space, previously occupied by stock traders, was filled with cubicles; Wu wanted a very different arrangement. Now, the only remaining enclosure is Wu&amp;#039;s diminutive private office, where he sits at a small black-lacquer desk.  The spine of the 9,000-square-foot space is the showroom, a long rectangle with unadorned walls that are painted white to ensure they don&amp;#039;t compete with the vivid colors of Wu&amp;#039;s clothes. Architect Valle hung simple steel racks from the ceiling at varying heights to display skirts, dresses, or gowns, and added strategically placed mirrors, which enlarge the room and multiply glimpses of Wu&amp;#039;s latest creations.  Carrier\u2014who counts among his clients Anna Wintour, GQ publisher Peter Hunsinger, and former Men&amp;#039;s Vogue editor Jay Fielden\u2014was the logical choice to pick up where Valle left off. Carrier helped Wu select furniture, including the three tables that run up the center of the showroom\u2014their trompe l&amp;#039;oeil legs, which appear to be turned wood, are actually raw steel. The walls are decorated with Wu&amp;#039;s collection of photographs by contemporary artists, as well as prints by Italian fashion illustrator Ren\u00E9 Gruau, whose work once appeared in the pages of ELLE, Marie Claire, Vogue, and European fashion magazines.  Someday Wu will have his own stores, and now that the office is complete, he says, he has a good idea what they&amp;#039;ll look like. &amp;quot;This was a learning experience,&amp;quot; he says. He pauses to survey the combination of rough and refined elements, then adds, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the first time I&amp;#039;ve expressed my brand in anything but the clothes.&amp;quot; Click here to tour Jason Wu&amp;#039;s new studio. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/celebrity-style/a2815/jason-wus-new-look-a-66710/>