Peter Marino<\/strong><\/em> has been an architect for a long time\u2014ever since he graduated from \u00adCornell\u2019s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning in 1971. But it\u2019s never been quite like this: Marino has become the No. 1 designer of the luxury landscape, the man who best understands how to move a customer on any continent through salons full of leather and lipstick and straight to the register. He knows how to work for any number of competitors\u2014walk down 57th Street near Fifth Avenue: That\u2019s Marino\u2019s Vuitton, \u00adMarino\u2019s Chanel, Marino\u2019s Christian Dior\u2014while keeping the brand identities intact and the sales figures brisk. Luxury, after all, has had a banner year despite absolutely everything else, and Marino is delighted. \u201cUsing \u2018the Pedro\u2019 produces very large profits,\u201d says Marino, referring to himself, wagging a finger that is covered, like all the rest of his fingers, in an enormous silver ring. He agrees that luxury is on fire these days, and, he says, \u201cI feel very much a part of that growth<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

Peter Marino<\/em> <\/strong>is an unusual\u00a0high-fashion creature in ways beyond the codpiece. He has three distinct ways of speaking: There is the default speech, which bears traces of his native Queens accent (he had a childhood coach to lose it, but sometimes it\u2019s there) and in which most sentences begin and\/or end with an enthusiastic\u00a0dude. Fucking<\/em>\u00a0is a top adjective. And then there\u2019s the whole third-person thing, or \u201cthe Pedro,\u201d which he adopted after an article in a Spanish magazine referred to him as Pedro el Grande, Peter the Great. That he\u2019ll use in a variety of contexts, like when giving a tour of the Chanel boutique in Soho, where he curls up on a leather banquette in the dressing room and purrs, \u201cThe Pedro loves leather,\u201d or when he is asked if he wears Chanel\u2019s newest men\u2019s fragrance and he answers, \u201cFragrance is not allowed in the clubs where the Pedro goes.\u201d<\/p>\n