The Shophound

FASHION FROM THE GREAT BEYOND: CARR Launches A Posthumous Label For Fall 2012

Is it possible to launch a label for a designer who has been dead for over a decade?
George Carr and Edward Jones III are about to find out when they debut the CARR label this fall. The brand is named for designer Zack Carr, who briefly had his own label in the 1980s but was best known as Calvin Klein's longtime Creative Director. He also happened to be George Carr's brother and died from a rare blood cancer in 2000. Well known and liked by fashion insiders, Zack Carr never achieved the kind of immense fame that could help promote a new label, but the new brand's founders are betting on the quality of vast archives of sketches that the designer left to creatively fuel the new collections. Jones tells WWD, “I think there’s an authenticity of design coming from Zack that is the foundation, which is really important, but we don’t have to live on that.” Carr's naturally clean-lined style should lend itself to a timeless point of view, and a design staff will adapt the thousands of sketches for modern modern sensibilities. And major retailers are already on board with the effort, too. Bloomingdale's and and Saks Fifth Avenue will be exclusively carrying the women's and men's collections respectively through Fall 2013.

Priced solidly in the Designer price range, there may also be a secret customer in wait for the launch: former, faithful Calvin Klein Collection customers who haven't been as charmed as the press has by Francisco Costa's take on the label since its namesake stepped away about a decade ago (The Collection component of the brand has diminished commercially since Klein retired). Who would have guessed that their solution would come from beyond?

George Carr Launching New Brand for Fall By Marc Karimzadeh (WWD)

SWEET SHOPS: Magnolia Bakery Invades Bloomingdale's

We suppose that it makes a strange sort of sense that cupcakes are now being sold under the same roof as Spanx.

Magnolia Bakery opened an outpost next to the Third Avenue entrance at Bloomingdale's (which has also acquired a shiny new canopy to the street). It is anly half a block away from Dylan's Candy bar, though we can't imagine that it could offer too much competition to that giant candy shrine. We have remarked a few times that macarons are the new cupcakes, which would have suggested that cupcake-centric bakeries should be on the decline, but sadly, this is not the case. It seems that macarons are the new cupcakes only for people who understand that they are different from macaroons that come in a tin from Manischewitz on Passover. For everyone else, cupcakes are still all the rage, and now they are invading our department stores.

On the one hand, The Shophound really supports and appreciates baked goods of all kinds, but on the other, we don't want to be faced with them at every turn. When we stopped by Bloomingdale's this week, it seemed like the Magnolia staff had not fully acclimated to their responsibilities, and by that we mean that we stood in front of the register for an awfully long time before anyone figured out that they should probably ring up our bran muffin (Yes, bran muffin. We do have some self control). Hopefully, they will get it together by this weekend, when Third Avenue's shopping crowds should be in full effect.

Honestly, we'll admit that a cupcake counter fits in fairly well with Bloomingdale's unique populist/luxury sensibility, so even we can't exactly fault management for installing the shop, but we just cant help thinking that we have long passed the point of "enough already with the cupcakes".

Magnolia Bakery at Bloomingdale's 1000 Third Avenue between 59th & 60th Streets, Upper East Side
Previously:
Cupcakes Carry On: Magnolia Bakery Takes Root In Bloomingdale's (7.14.2011)

COPYCATS: In Which We Discover Ralph Lauren Blatantly Knocking Off Maharishi

So, the other day, The Shophound was wandering through Bloomingdale's on 59^th Street to see of there was anything worthwhile remaining of the last Summer markdowns when we noticed the lavishly embroidered pant you see above. We thought, "Oh, look. Bloomingdale's is carrying Maharishi now."

Many may know Maharishi as the London based sportswear line that gained a cult following by festooning military-style clothing with bright Chinese-style embroidery. At the time the label reached its peak —the late 1990s and early 2000s— it was an unlikely and charming combination. For a time, the label was a mainstay at Barneys and other similarly influential retailers, but after a while, shoppers moved on to other brands, and the label became less visible in such stores. Unfortunately, the style spawned many unfortunate imitators who copied the brand's ideas with less finesse (culminating in the hideous cacophony that is Ed Hardy), but somehow, the originators always seemed to get the look right.

Imagine our surprise when we took a closer look at the pants before us and discovered that they were not from Maharishi at all, but RLX, Ralph Lauen's high-tech athletic line.

Now, Ralph Lauren has been accused of copying things for most of his career as a designer, and most of the time he probably wouldn't argue. His inspirations, however, tend to include the classics whose origins are decades in the past, or vintage items that are lovingly adapted for modern consumption. You can't fault someone too heavily for trying to reproduce the elegant line of Cary Grant's suits if nobody else is making them, and it goes without saying that he has found an enormously receptive customer base for his products, but Maharishi is still very much alive and in operation. While the RLX pants are probably not a direct copy of a Maharishi embroidery, the concept is clearly lifted wholesale from the British company. Compare the images below (click to enlarge). On the left is the RLX "combat pant" taken from Ralph Lauren's website, and on the right is a current offering from Maharishi, the signature "Original Dragon Snopant", virtually unchanged from the version The Shophound picked up in 1999 from Ron Herman at Fred Segal on Melrose in Los Angeles (at the very least, you can say they are consistent). Over the past 15 years, they have produced their signature "snopants" with innumerable different embroidery designs, and it has become the brand's flagship item.

So you decide, copying or "hommage"? We know where we stand. On the plus side, maybe this means its time to take our Maharishi pants out of the "Archives" closet and put them back into rotation.

 

CUPCAKES CARRY ON: Magnolia Bakery Takes Root In Bloomingdale's

If you ask The Shophound, we would tell you that cupcakes have been done to death. There is certainly no shortage of cupcake bearing bakeries in the city, and they have become something of a a cliché among those who like to think of themselves as trendsetters. It's not that we wouldn't happily consume a cupcake of you put it in front of us, but it is fancy French macarons like the ones we scarfed down at La Maison du Chocolat or from the imminently opening Ladurée that are the current bite-sized sweet indulgence of choice. That shift in status won't slow Magnolia Bakery from expanding throughout the city, however. Having staked out territory in the West Village, Upper West Side, Midtown and Grand Central Terminal, the bakery that can be credited/blamed for creating a craze for twee little cakes will finally be serving the East Side not from its own store, but from an outpost in Bloomingdale's. Slated to open in September, the in-store shop will be open from 7:30 AM to 10 PM offering the bakery's full line of confections.

Unexpectedly, the shop will located at the central Third Avenue entrance which usually leads right into the Men's department. It's not that men won't eat cupcakes, but, possibly because of the bakery's association with the TV show "Sex And The City", they have something of a trendy, girly image. This particular spot would seem to be more appropriate for a pretzel bar, for example (There is already a burger restaurant downstairs in the Men's Department). Issues of gender mores aside, however, we aren't worried that the bakery counter won't be successful since there is still a great number of people for whom the word "cupcake" triggers an involuntary urge to stand in line and salivate. As impressed as we have been with Bloomingdales' ongoing efforts to update and upgrade its flagship, we can't help thinking that in this particular instance, the legendary store has fallen a little bit behind the curve.

Magnolia Bakery at Bloomingdale's opening in September, 1000 Third Avenue between 59^th and 60^th Streets, Upper East Side

ACCESSORIES UPGRADE: Dior & Prada Shops Coming Soon To Bloomingdale's

Though the massive overhaul of Bloomingdale's main floor designer accessory boutiques is only about halfway finished, the store is boldly positioning itself to take on its biggest competitors once it is done. The most impressive change will be the addition of major Prada and Christian Dior boutiques as well as the just-opened Jimmy Choo shop to the already heady mix of handbags on the Lexington Avenue side of the floor. This puts Bloomingdale's on a better footing to compete with stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman whose limited distribution arrangements with most luxury brands left the East Side favorite out of the loop, until now. A big, expanded Chanel shop recently opened alongside newly refreshed spaces for Ferragamo, Marc Jacobs, Fendi and Chloé.

While there was a time when Bloomingdale's would have been first place a a hot brand would want to be seen, the store's prestige took a critical hit during the recession of the 1990s when management made a decision to trade down and de-emphasize its high end assortments. While the store hung on to sterling labels like Chanel and Giorgio Armani, it lost its place in the pecking order for emerging brands and missed out on much of the status "It" bag business as the century turned. It has been a long, hard fought battle to rebuild the store's snob appeal, and the store's ongoing renovations appears to have helped convince picky vendors like Prada and Dior that it has the proper environment for their labels. Sharp-eyed shoppers will have noticed that earlier in the year, cluttery counters were removed from the Lexington Avenue entrances, giving the floor a more genteel, elegant feeling while more aspirational labels like Burberrry, Longchamp and Coach got kicked half a flight upstairs to the cosmetics level. That leaves the lower section as pure luxury player that will ultimately be anchored by Prada at one end and Louis Vuitton at the other.

We are guessing that the new accessory shops will be completed sometime before the Holiday season, so we should see the reults of the overhaul in a few weeks. Settled firmly in the city's wealthiest zip code, Bloomingdale's should now have a lot more enticement to lure back the nearby customers who abandoned it for tonier options years ago.

SIX OF ONE HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER: Bloomingdale's Replaces It's Third Avenue Storefront With A Slightly Less Ugly One

It's always difficult to make harmonious changes to the exterior of an old building that will hold up over time. For example, Bergdorf Goodman's 1980's era revamp of its Fifth Avenue side has not aged particularly well aesthetically, even if it served a practical purpose. Sometime during the 1960s or '70s (or maybe the '50s), Bloomingdale's had its Third Avenue side reshaped as a big slab of stone totally incongruous with the building to which it was fastened. That's how it has looked ever since, with the more elegant, Art Deco era Lexington Avenue side of the store serving as it's official "face" —until this year when the Third Avenue side was shrouded with net and scaffolding. Obviously, the brutal block of stone was in for some changes, and in our hopeful optimism, The Shophound thought that Bloomingdale's would replace it with something that harmonized better with the original upper half of that section of the store. Like Bergdorf's, Saks and it sister store Macy's, the Bloomingdale's flagship has been cobbled together over the years out of the once separate buildings on the block it eventually took over, a history especially noticeable on the 59^th Street side of the store. That's why it always feels like there are two separate sections of every floor when you are inside. We figured that since they had so thoughtfully renovated much of the store's interior, particularly the dramatically reconfigured Men's Department, that they would do something equally impressive on the outside.

Well, We like to aim high.

Last weekend we discovered that the store had something simpler in mind, and basically replaced the gray granite with polished marble that echoes the more ornate black stone on Lexington Avenue in its color as well as the shiny black lacquered surfaces that have become a signature of its store interior design. Of course, it still doesn't match the rest of the storefront, and we can't figure out why they didn't just cover the whole thing with the new stone since what used to be windows above it have been covered over anyway. Surprisingly, the new scheme appears to have actually diminished window display space. It's a marginal improvement visually, but this is how you can expect Bloomingdale's to look for at least the next few decades.

The Window Watcher: Has Bloomingdale's Outed Batman & Robin?

This season, Bloomingdale's has been celebrating the 75^th Anniversary of DC Comics with a special selection of exclusive merchandise from brands like Converse, Psycho Bunny and Jack Spade among others. We were kind of hoping that they would take the opportunity to do an Epic Superhero Holiday Extravaganza for their windows, but instead have only placed core characters Batman & Robin in a vaguely questionable situation that would appear to confirm the long held suspicions of some that the two are more than just a crime-fighting duo.
The Lexington Avenue window is entitled "Dynamic Duos", and features the team alongside other famous couples that otherwise have nothing else whatsoever to do with each other, including Antony and Cleopatra, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Santa and Mrs. Claus. Is the window suggesting that Batman & Robin are indeed romantically linked like the others? Given the general ineptness of this window, we tend to think not. It is probably just an unintended effect of trying to wedge a store promotion into a not terribly well-conceived holiday display. The mannequins are so ill-matched that they don't even appear to come from the same workshop. In fact it's basically impossible for any of these pairs to exist at the same time in any single universe, especially since some of them are imaginary.
There's lots of things to love about Bloomingdale's, but their Holiday windows, in general, have never garnered the kind of acclaim and attention that Barneys, Bergdorf's and Saks have (Though this particular window is basically a mess, we want to mention that the other windows have  been executed with somewhat more finesse). Now they have unwittingly referenced decades of very unofficial fan generated slash-fiction that portrays the Batman and Robin (in this case, Bruce Wayne and his ward, Tim Drake, judging from their costumes) as lovers which, in many cases, has incurred vigilant legal action from DC. The publisher has always firmly maintained that the two are just friends and coworkers, despite Batman's lack of a steady romantic interest like Superman and Lois Lane, for example (There's that tortured relationship with Catwoman, but we digress...). While there are a few gay characters in the vast DC Universe, and many heroes and villains have been re-conceived over the decades. Batman and Robin have never officially been adapted like that, and probably won't be anytime soon.
Since DC is in the middle of a promotion with Bloomingdale's, we aren't quite sure how they will respond, if at all. Perhaps Batman & Robin are just serving as security for Santa and his celebrity visitors —because why would they have anything else to do?

Today In Jumping The Gun: In Which We Get Annoyed By Christmas In October

So yesterday, The Shophound was sauntering through Bloomingdale's thinking that they really did do a nice job reconfiguring their cosmetics floor, and that their men's department is probably one of the best retail renovations we have seen in years, when we happened upon the above display.
On the one hand, we were happy to see Bloomingdale's give some space to Simon Spurr's menswear (which is as handsome as it is staggeringly expensive) but on the other, we couldn't help being distracted by those pointy, sparkly pylons. We realized that these were meant to be little Christmas trees, and it's not even Halloween yet! The irksome things along with graphic banners in fuchsia, green and white, were popping up all over the store, ruining what had only moments before been a perfectly enjoyable rainy day shopping excursion.
There used to be an unwritten rule that Holiday decorations went up during the week of Thanksgiving, so that the store would be properly turned out when the Holiday season officially began on Black Friday, but over the years, some retailers have been pushing their decorations earlier and earlier until we have gotten to this point, where a store might see itself as efficiently accomplishing the huge task of decorating an enormous store, but customers just see it as untimely and tacky.
Yes, TACKY.
We don't care how gorgeous and inventive your holiday decorations are, we don't want to see them before mid-November at the earliest.
That is all.

Ralph, Marc & Bloomingdale's Commemorate As Gay Pride Hits Middle Age

Click Images For A Larger View In A New Window

It has become traditional as June wears on for Bleecker Street's boutiques to give a nod to the West Village's traditional but slowly vanishing character. This year, the 1969 Stonewall riots, which started the modern Gay Rights movement and took place only a few blocks from Bleecker, hit their big 40^th anniversary.
Marc Jacobs, for one, has typically recognized Gay Pride, and this year he has festooned his women's and Accessory stores with rainbow graffiti and slogans. Thankfully, it appears that he has avoided revisiting last year's poorly received "Rebel Pride" t-shirt.

Now that he has even more Bleecker frontage, Ralph Lauren has upgraded his displays from the clever but spare racks of Polo shirts arranged in rainbow formation he has used in recent years. This year, he has added a more dynamic window design promoting a $10 "Live Colorful" tote bag his stores are selling to benefit the Hetrick Martin Institute. The bags read "I Kiss Girls" or "I Kiss Boys" depending on whom you feel like kissing (presumably, bisexuals will be encouraged to buy both).

Interestingly, the most respectful commemoration is not in the West Village, but a neighborhood away in SoHo, where Bloomingdale's has installed windows specifically referencing the uprisings that began at the Stonewall Inn. Mannequins free of merchandise depicting a retro Christopher Street scene are affectionately styled as West Village stereotypes (OK, the Madonna t-shirt is slightly less retro, but entirely appropriate) recalling some of the recently republished photographs of the riots including a protesting drag queen carrying a placard with her rebel cry:

We are the Stonewall Girls
We wear our hair in curls!
We wear our dungarees
Above our nelly knees!

Silly, yes, but still apparently effective.
Marc Jacobs 385 & 403-405 Bleecker Street
Ralph Lauren 381 & 383 Bleecker Street, West Village
Bloomingdale's 504 Broadway, SoHo

Today In Renovations: Ralph Lauren Gets A New Look At Bloomingdale's

The revamped Men's Department at Bloomingdale's is almost finished, and a major component was revealed last week as a new shop-in-shop for Ralph Lauren made its début. The cluttery, sprawling Polo shop that lived in the store's basement had been one of the designer's largest in-store boutiques anywhere, and sported a combination of his "country store" look and the more elegant ornate dark wood décor that was originally inspired by his Rhinelander Mansion flagship at Madison Avenue and 72^nd Street that opened more than 20 years ago.
These styles have been dutifully duplicated in department stores and Polo Shops countless times in the ensuing years, so when it was time to redo the space at Bloomingdale's, a refreshing left turn was taken that could signal a sweeping new look for Lauren at retail. The space has been moved south the the 59^th street side of the floor, and an exclusive, exterior entrance is being built. Gone are the elaborate carvings and oriental carpets. There is still lots of wood, but now it's present in sleek, modern panels accented with brushed steel and stone floors. The product, meticulously placed as always by Polo's roving team of merchandisers, once carefully tucked and squeezed into every available crevice and garnished with all manner of vintage gear is now allowed room to breathe on shelves and tables where customers can actually examine and handle it without disturbing an artfully composed display. Reportedly, the new look is based on a recently opened Ralph Lauren store in Moscow, though it ironically recalls the second, more contemporary Madison Avenue flagship (once known as Polo Sport) across from the Mansion that was demolished last year to make room for a larger, more typical Edwardian style building being constructed to serve as a Women's store. Regardless of the inspiration, it's a welcome update from what had become a clichéd visual style. Also gone is the word "Polo" from the signage, which now reads simply "Ralph Lauren". While the word naturally remains on labels, the space now includes the designer's more contemporary and expensive Black Label men's line, a new addition since the renovation. Clearly, the more modern upper brand is now setting the pace.
In other Bloomingdale's news, The street level renovations have been completely finished only to reveal that much of what was once the Men's Store has been given over to Women's jewelry and accessories! Presumably, the lost space will be recovered downstairs when Ralph's former digs (now behind plywood) are reconfigured to flow with the rest of the department. For now, underwear and pajamas exist uneasily next to designer sportswear lines.
Also new is a main floor boutique for fabled British shirtmaker Turnbull & Asser which the store is touting as the label's first in-store shop at an American department store.
Uh, yeah, if you conveniently forget about the one that Bergdorf Goodman operated for decades before the company opened its own shop on 57^th street.
Oops.
Or is Bergdorf's not a department store anymore?
Ralph Lauren Men's at Bloomingdale's, 1000 Third Avenue at 59^th Street, East Side