![]() ![]() I was so creative and nuts when I was 18. People started talking about ‘the crazy guy who wears leather.’ All I was trying to do was reconnect with my youth. “When I turned 50, I went back to riding a motorcycle, which I’d done in college. “When I was a young architect at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, I had to dress like a little architect mouse in little suits,” he recalls. Marino acknowledges that his appearance may explain in part why he’s risen above many of his peers. Then, about a decade ago, he exchanged a traditional wardrobe of cashmere and tweeds for the black leather uniform he now wears daily. Marino’s career started out conventionally enough, toeing the line as one of several hundred architects at a prestigious firm. You stare at the walls for seven years and you develop strong powers of observation.” I had a somewhat unusual childhood with a disease that was pretty disabling. Jane would remember what everyone was wearing,” says Marino of his wife, costume designer Jane Trapnell, with whom he has a daughter. “My wife and I would go to a dinner party and I’d describe the rooms, from the colors of the walls to the furniture. You need two sides of the brain to be an architect. I wasn’t sure if I’d go into fine art or architecture. “I graduated from high school with a ginormous art medal given to me by then-New York Mayor Lindsay. Marino knows the art versus commerce debate well. The Metropolitan has given fashion its quasi-mark of approval with the Costume Institute in the basement of the museum. But there’s a huge amount of artistic talent. “They are in the realm of artists,” he says. Marino seems to have a genuine affinity for designers. We explain the expectation and objectives in a given city and he grasps it. When we meet with Peter, it’s not just what is written on a piece of paper. The way you work with an architect is a lot like working with a designer. He gives the feeling of an apartment through the materials, lighting and furnishings, but at the same time, we need drawers and shelves to do business. “He understands that, in the end, this is a boutique. ![]() ![]() “Peter has something that very few interior designers have,” says Sidney Toledano, president and chief executive officer of Christian Dior. “When they hire me,” Marino says, “I wrap my arms around their legs and never let go.” It goes a long way toward explaining his decades-long relationships with the kingpins of fashion - Chanel’s Wertheimer family, with whom he began working in 1982, and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton chief Bernard Arnault, who he linked up with in 1995 - plus the likes of Americana Manhasset owner Frank Castagna, the Zegna family and the Hublot family. Known for creating modern retail spaces with varying degrees of glamour, from understated to full-frontal, Marino has become the keeper of brand identities, reserving shades of gray for Dior, golden chain mail for Louis Vuitton, and glass and blackened steel for Chanel. In an industry with the collective attention span of a fruit fly, Marino has enjoyed an improbably long run. Peter from the block is also Pedro from Milan, as in his third-person remark, “A lot of what Pedro does isn’t very glamorous.”Ī Closer Look at Miss USA Noelia Voigt's Swimwear, Opening Number Dress and National Costume for Miss Universe 2023 Pageant Marino speaks knowledgeably on such subjects as art history and Middle Eastern politics, but mixes in words like “dude” and “ginormous” in a raspy mash-up of a proper British accent and the street-smart patois of his native Bayside, N.Y. Known for the collection of Renaissance and Baroque bronze sculpture that fills his Manhattan home, he also has an array of edgy art by Vik Muniz and Anselm Reyle rotating through his office. The architect of choice for fashion and luxury retailers, Marino, 61, is a study in contrasts. It’s hard to top such a macabre work of art, but Marino manages to upstage “Oil” with his 360-degree biker duds that include a black muscle shirt, dark sunglasses, leather biker’s hat, tattoos and Goth jewelry. NEW YORK - Standing in front of artist Andrei Molodkin’s “Oil Revolution,” an installation featuring skulls encased in acrylic blocks and connected to long tubes filled with a dark liquid, Peter Marino cuts an eye-popping figure in head-to-toe black leather. ![]()
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