This Just In

Rumors have been rampant. And for once, the rumor mill is right: Beloved Dallas retail mecca Forty Five Ten is coming to Houston’s River Oaks District.

Securing a prime corner space across from Tom Ford and next to Toulouse, Forty Five Ten owner Brian Bolke unfurls his retail might with the appointments of two fashion luminaries for the Dallas and Houston stores: women’s fashion director Taylor Tomasi Hill, who will edit womenswear and accessories (heavy on new and emerging designers), and menswear merchant/Instagram sensation Nick Wooster, focusing on an exclusive men’s assortment that includes his Nick Wooster and Lardini collaboration.

A supremely chic home objects and gift department is being developed in Houston by home creative director Rob Dailey. New store concepts include Rare Beauty, an exclusive offering of fragrance, color and treatment; an Assouline book department; and, at the entrance, Copper Bar, serving Champagnes and coffee.

“We want a store that will add to the walkability of River Oaks District,” Bolke says. “Some of our best and favorite clients of the last 16 years are from Houston. We have been literally looking for the last decade for a Houston location, but the location and timing didn’t feel right until now.”

Architect David Droese of Droese Raney Architecture will design the interiors with Bolke, who says everything should be ready for a late-September unvieling.

Backstory

Bolke opened Forty Five Ten (at 4510 McKinney, thus the name) in Dallas in 2000, and it was soon worshipped by Dallas’ philanthropic, art-collecting, globe-hopping set. Unlike any retail establishment seen before, it was more a cozy luxurious stage set than a delineated, departmentalized store.

“Forty Five Ten is not about a singular experience — coming in and buying something,” Bolke says. “It involves taste and smell and vision and feel. The design of the store can change and will change, because I might be inspired by something new in four months. Creation is a moving process, and it won’t stop when we open the door.”

All this on the eve of the opening of Bolke’s new Downtown Dallas, 37,000-square-foot flagship Forty Five Ten, at the end of October, with jet-loads of designers and fashion faces flying in for the fête. Once again, it’s a retail game-changer.

Forty Five Ten Houston, opening late September in River Oaks District, 4444 Westheimer, fortyfiveten.com.