HOME AGAIN: Retailer and entrepreneur Simon Burstein has moved his store, The Place London, to a familiar place, South Molton Street in Mayfair. He’s opened the store on the former site of Browns, the landmark luxury retailer founded by his family in 1970.
Browns left South Molton Street during the pandemic, and in 2021 it moved into a high-tech store on nearby Brook Street, not far from Claridge’s.
The old Browns was a higgledy-piggledy lineup of interconnected shops with an Alice in Wonderland style and had been a retail institution for nearly 50 years. The Burstein family sold the business to Farfetch in 2015, and the move to Brook Street was announced four years later.
The Place on South Molton Street in London. It occupies the former Browns space on the street.
The Place is located at 26 South Molton Street and spans 1,200 square feet over three floors. The ground floor and mezzanine are dedicated to womenswear, while the Leathersmith of London diary and journals are on the lower ground floor. Leathersmith is also owned by Burstein.
Leathersmith menswear has its own entrance at 67 Davies Street, opposite the Bond Street Underground station.
The Place London was formerly located in Connaught village near Marble Arch, but Burstein said the footfall wasn’t ideal so when the lease expired he decided to move to the old Browns space.
Grosvenor, which owns much of Mayfair, is also refurbishing South Molton Street and turning the other units that once made up Browns into a mix of retail and residential properties.
A look inside Simon Burstein‘s store, The Place, which has moved to South Molton Street in London.
Burstein said The Place will continue to focus on “affordable luxury, with the emphasis on creativity, craftsmanship and uniqueness from international under-the-radar designers.”
The store carries names including Cord, a sustainable clothing label that produces one-off designs that are like wearable pieces of art; luxe silk tailored creations by Pierre-Louis Mascia, and romantic pieces from Les Filles d’Ailleurs by the Romanian designer Gabriela Lissillour.
Accessories include bags from the Italian label Zanellato, and the Ghanaian brand AAKS. The Place also has two Paris shops that carry similar assortments for men and women.