When Jasmin Larian Hekmat was plotting her ready-to-wear label Cult Gaia’s latest boutique in the Miami Design District, she sought to mix Edenic references with a healing dose of Vitamin D. Apropos of the Sunshine State, portals to the outdoors are sprinkled throughout the 1,500-square-foot store thanks to the deft touch of interiors firm Sugarhouse. Those nods begin outside, with a fantastical hand-painted ceramic mural of a silhouetted tree and flower-crowned nymphs by Michael Chandler adorning the A-frame facade in wondrous shades of blue. It evokes both Henri Rousseau and the lapis lazuli hues that adorn Persian mosques—a striking departure from the area’s typically flat architecture.
When visitors walk through the arched central door, they’re greeted with the motto “may all the doors of the world always be open to you.” Such mindfulness befits a meditative tripartite interior blanketed in creamy hues of limestone and travertine. Clothes hang neatly from unlacquered brass rods reminiscent of Cult Gaia’s jewelry, neighboring biomorphic wall mirrors by New Vernacular Studio. The main dressing area, clad in 100 chiseled sandstone blocks, references rock-cut cave temples. Two ceiling domes contain oculi that let the light in. Statement pieces sit under each—in one room, a towering Banyan tree nests within a serpentine sofa by Brandi Howe; another fixates on a 12-foot-tall concrete sculpture of a female nude. Giacometti may come to mind at first glance, but was actually made by Larian Hekmat’s mother, Angela.
