The Shophound

New Additions: Zilli's Luxe Lands In Midtown

If The Shophound wasn't on our way to Los Angeles, we would scrambling over to East 57^th Street to check out Zilli's first U.S. boutique in the Four Seasons Hotel. The opulent French brand sells in only two other U.S. stores, Battaglia Shop in Beverly Hills, and Da Vinci in Scottsdale, Arizona, so it hasn't been seen in New York for quite a few years.WWD 's report suggests a glitzy store which is no surprise since dress shirts start at about $600, and leather jackets, the label's signature item, average around $11,000. Don't leave your wallet at home! We look forward to visiting next week when we get back because we need some socks and we can never think of anything to do with that extra gazillion bucks we always have lying around.
French Men's Wear Brand Zilli Opens N.Y. Flagship (WWD)
Zilli (Official Site)
Previously:
Recession? What Recession? Zilli's French Luxury To Hit Midtown ...Whether You're Ready Or Not

Cintra Wilson Goes Shopping: Quick On The Job Edition

In this week's Thursday Styles, Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson wastes not a moment getting herself to Isaac Mizrahi's brand spanking new boutique off Madison Avenue. You have to admire La Cintra's diligence, as the boutique has been open for barely a week. Much of her report concerns a brief recap of Mizrahi's career triumphs, trials and tribulations before landing at the happy ending of his career rejuvenation by way of an unlikely showbiz path.
We weren't sure what our extra-critical shopper would make of the designer's signature mixture of camp and quirk, but she treats his loopier creations with gentler skepticism than usual, and just when you think his aesthetic might be a bit too mature for her —"Mr. Mizrahi dubbed this season’s look, Smile. I dubbed it, Barbara Walters Turns 30 Again."—she she strikes gold in the made-to-order room...or maybe silver:

Then the kicker: gowns and a shaggy coat made entirely out of aluminum Christmas trees. They are actually tinsel, hand-sewn onto mesh, something Bob Mackie might have designed for the hood ornament of a 1966 Buick Electra, or a radioactive gorilla.
I tried the silver gown ($9,400), T-backed and plunging in front, with a white mink mini-jacket of the Miss America variety ($21,208).
“Oh!” cried an older lady, squinting from the far end of the store. “You look gorgeous!”
“It’s the dress!” I hollered back. I was Carole Lombard for a thrilling micro-moment, until the straps came tumbling down and I revealed things a lady oughtn’t, in mixed company

That puts her one micro-moment ahead of most people.
Critical Shopper | Isaac Mizrahi: One-Man Show, or His Latest Act? by Cintra Wilson (NYTimes)
Isaac Mizrahi 23 East 67th Street between Fifth & Madison Avenues, Upper East Side

Location Speculation: Is This Isabel Marant's New Maison In New York?

Last Friday, Style.com broke the news that Isabel Marant, the Parisian designer with the sleeper cult-following, was opening a boutique in SoHo in just a few months. The location was described as near the corner of Broome and Greene Streets. Could this empty parcel at that very corner be the spot? The former Waterworks showroom is the only unoccupied shop on the corner, and it looks like something's going on behind that craft paper over the windows. It puts Marant just a block away from fellow French lady Catherine Malandrino's shop on Broome, which otherwise feels somewhat less exploited by fashion retailers compared to the rest of SoHo.
Marant is famously internet-phobic, having asked all her retail accounts to pull her goods from online selling, and her website consists only of a small video of her Fall '09 runway show, so there's little info coming from that front. Feel free to correct us if we're wrong —as if you need to be encouraged.

Mike Albo Goes Shopping: At The Center Of The Trend Edition

This week, Critical Shopper Mike Albo wastes no time in getting himself to Odin's brand new branch in the West Village for the Thursday Styles. From his report we can basically deduce that this new Odin is much like the other two: slightly cramped, but full of appealing stuff.
By running the leading men's boutique in the city, at the moment, and one of the country's most influential stores, the folks at Odin bear some responsibility for the trends that are currently cresting in the world of men's fashion, and in his way, Mike crystallizes exactly what they are:

Steeped as we are in decades of postmodern self-referential artifice, we don’t just want to look like backwoodsmen; we want to look like actors from the 1950s playing backwoodsmen of the 1890s, but in a totally fresh, laid-back 2009 kind of way.

It's all rugged authenticity these days for a guy out shopping, and in some quarters, that leaves you a choice of looking like a lumberjack or a longshoreman. While Odin does a very good job of keeping things fresh, flaws in the formula are starting to appear.

A Richard Chai short-sleeve striped T-shirt, for $95, felt soft and had interesting vertical seams, but if I see one more hipster horizontal-stripe shirt, I will scream.

So will we.
Critical Shopper | Odin: Neighborhood Preservation By Mike Albo (NYTimes)
Odin 750 Greenwich Street at West 11th Street, West Village

Cintra Wilson Goes Shopping: West Coast Indulgence Edition

This week, Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson ditches Manhattan for a browse around L.A. for the Thursday Styles, landing at the renowned boutique Maxfield on Melrose Avenue.
Wilson delivers the surprising news that, along with staggeringly expensive Balmain motorcycle jackets, the store also stocks a selection of luxury erotica and even more disturbing, a rage of macabre artifacts.

I have always wanted to see a real shrunken head. At Maxfield, you can buy one for a mere $37,500. Also a Dayak human trophy skull, whose tag describes him as having a “very well handled patina,” and perhaps the most truly frightening objet d’art I’ve ever seen: another human skull with huge ram horns knotted onto it with rattan and decorated with a knot of shredded floral fabric that strongly suggests the someone’s bird-watching aunt toddled too far into the heart of darkness ($39,000).

Cool? Gross? Both? I guess there's an 11-year old in all of us who wants to stand over a glass case and say, "Wi-i-i-i-icked!". These things are expensive, but will certainly save you the trouble of making your own.
Even Wilson is stunned at the price tags, particularly for some of the decrepit "vintage" pieces ("A moth-eaten Gucci suitcase made of genuine zebra hide will set you back $21,500 ... but it screams old money.") In the end, La Cintra can't help but admire owner Tommy Perse's curatorial skills, with qualifiers.

There is something that feels sincerely radical about $3,000 jeans, rare art books, sex tools, the viscount’s old luggage, Le Corbusier patio chairs and human skulls all being sold in the same room. But is Maxfield truly avant-garde, or is it sexily complicit, capitalist luxury kitsch?

Critical Shopper | Maxfield The Posh and the Perverse By Cintra Wilson
Maxfield 8825 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles

On a related note: The Shophound will be in L.A. in a couple of weeks. We haven't been there for ages, so please let us know HERE about any fantastic California stores we shouldn't miss.

A Mini-Chain Is Born: Odin Opens Store #3

It was still under construction when we walked by last week, but WWD is reporting that Odin's third location at Greenwich and West 11^th Streets in the West Village is now open for business, officially creating a mini-chain. The antiques-filled interior should feel familiar to regular customers of the trailblazing contemporary men's boutique's other locations. “Every neighborhood has a different need, and the customers here want the basic essentials: toothpaste, socks, cotton T-shirts, things you can’t find all that easily in the West Village,” Co-owner Eddy Chai tells WWD. Don't go looking for this to be Odin's version of the Gap. This branch of store will carry its stalwart labels like Engineered Garments, Woolrich, Our Legacy and 3.1 Phillip Lim. 'Basic' is, after all, a relative term.
Holiday will bring the début of a new sportswear line produced by the retailer in collaboration with the folks at Duckie Brown, whose shoe line for Florsheim is sold there (and practically everywhere else in Manhattan as far as we can tell).
Odin Opens in West Village (WWD)
Odin New York (Official Site)

Flagship Alert: It's Tommy Time On Fifth Avenue

Being preoccupied with every little Fashion Week detail almost made us forget that Fifth Avenue just got a major addition: Tommy Hilfiger's 22,000 square foot brand palace on Fifth Avenue between 53^rd and 54^th Streets.
The store has been a long time coming because Hilfiger obviously had to fully gut what had been a Fortunoff store. The good news is that he has erased the garish '70's era metal and glass façade and replaced it with something more in keeping with what was left of the McKim, Mead & White building. Inside he has installed a traditionally appointed interior, with a strangely incongruous modern spiral staircase connecting the levels.
Of course, he has filled it with five floors of Tommy Hilfiger.
We'll admit that The Shophound has never been much of a Tommy fan. It's not that anything he makes is so awful, it's just that it's all so very familiar. This is nothing that others haven't been saying for decades, and, for the most part, it hasn't held Hilfiger back. Lack of fashion cred aside, Tommy is big business, and though he's had his ups and downs, he seems to be on an upswing these days, so the public has spoken. In response, he has given them a big fancy Fifth Avenue store that tourists can appreciate because it sells stuff they can easily afford. Tommy is using the high profile store to launch more expensive labels like a more deluxe women's collection, but even that pretty much tops out at bridge-level prices. Mixing in vintage items with his regular stock is another idea he has hardly originated (he also does it in his Bleecker Street store) but it does spice up the visuals on women's floors, although we're pretty sure that the Tommy Hilfiger store is not the best place to shop for vintage clothing.
On the men's floors, Hilfiger is also undertaking an upgrade, offering a special collection of suits retailing around the $1,000 mark, but again, we don't think the folks at Paul Stuart are looking over their shoulders. It seems more like a ploy to add prestige to the store than a serious repositioning of the brand. The basement has been devoted to Hilfiger Denim, and is a smaller scale recreation of the SoHo store devoted to that label complete with neon chandelier.
Overall, it's a massive Tommy statement, and, given the resurgence of tourists on Fifth Avenue, it couldn't be better timed. There are no big surprises inside, but neither are there any ill-conceived overreaches. Given the persistent struggles of more exclusive luxury retailers, Tommy's new store has made a timely appearance.
Tommy Hilfiger 681 Fifth Avenue between 53^rd and 54^th Streets, Midtown

Fashion's NIght Out: Forget The Sales, It's Drinks For Everybody!

Click images for a larger view in a new window.

Fashion's Night Out is over and we are pooped. POOPED!
If the goal of the event was to get people into stores, then in Manhattan, at least, it succeeded wildly. Every shopping area we hit was busy, and some were downright teeming with people.
We started the evening after three runway shows and three presentations, so really, we would just as soon have stayed home, but that would have been shirking our duty, and if the designers are putting in extra effort, so should we.
We began at Saks, whose main floor was packed with surprisingly dressed-up customers. The entire store felt like it was a busy Saturday in high season, with particularly concentrated crowds on the sumptuously renovated, designer laden third floor. We made our way to 7 to meet our friend DJ Aaron Elvis who was spinning for Marc by Marc Jacobs with a martini and margarita bar in tow, and the drinking was in full swing.  As we were next off to SoHo, our friends from Marc urged us stop by their Mercer Street shop where we found the designer himself in his signature kilt with more cocktails and snacks. Between Marc, Vera Wang, Costume National and Marni, that particular block was a raging party scene.
Onward to Greene Street, where we had Champagne with our friends from PHI and met Creative Director Andreas Melbostad along with star of the runways Suvi Koponen, who is lovely and tall, especially in her PHI boots. We would have happily to spend the rest of the evening there, but there was more to see. SoHo in general was buzzing, and some stores like Intermix were forced to impose velvet ropes on the sidewalk like nightclubs (which kind of defeats the purpose of the event, does it not?)
A Bathing Ape had a line wrapped around the corner of Spring Street, but that happens there every other day. The new Original Penguin store celebrated its grand opening with live models in the window, and Opening Ceremony was a madhouse. Throngs waited on the sidewalk to get in, but even if you weren't ready to face that, there were vendors on the street like Band of Outsiders' Tie Truck, selling specially priced neckwear just for the evening. Perhaps no store was better suited to the evening that Jil Sander across the street, whose first level is basically empty display space, making an easy transition to stylish downtown bar. After a quick tour through Anna Sui's elaborate Target Pop-Up on Crosby Street where models played various "Gossip Girl" characters and we were on to the final phase of our evening.
The last leg of our tour took us up to the West Village, where we meant to stop in at John Bartlett, but as his tiny store was quite full, and our feet were starting to give out, we headed up Bleecker Street where Ralph Lauren's string of shops had people flocking and Marc by Marc Jacobs was offering customers their photographs taken with models.
Finally, Raindrops began to fall as the Meatpacking District loomed. Adam by Adam Lippes had a lounge-y vibe and giant searchlights rotating at the front door. Theory's huge flagship was packing them in and taking orders for young designer accessory lines, and Jeffrey had a crush at the door that was surely brought on by rumors of Hugh Jackman. Did we stick around? No. Could we have gotten if we had? Probably not, but our feet were thanking us for turning homeward as we passed the door lines at Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen at 10 PM.
Did the event translate into sales? We don't exactly know yet, but what we do know is that retailers and designers have learned that they now need to do more than just hang up the clothes and open their doors to get customers back shopping again, and open bars don't hurt.

Cintra Wilson Goes Shopping: Resolutely Unwearable Edition

At some point it will be possible to separate Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson's columns from the recent flap over her review of JC Penney ...but not just yet.
In today's Thursday Styles, Wilson takes a visit to the looking glass world of the mass market chain's diametric opposite, the intriguing and often inscrutable Comme des Garçons boutique in West Chelsea, a store which had been relocated because its original location, a busy SoHo block, had become too popular and commercial. In its place is now a Barneys Co-op. As expected, designer Rei Kawakubo's work gives La Cintra endless opportunities for her signature similes,

The black vinyl garments looked like something a naked fugitive would assemble if he were trapped in a garage full of covered cars with nothing but an X-Acto knife. Hats were made of what looked like mangled black tetherballs.

The likelihood of angry repercussions from the naked fugitive community is pretty slim, no? Not only has Wilson found a backlash proof subject, it appears she has found the perfect fragrance for her new role as Persona Non Grata in the state of Texas,

Take, for example, Comme des Garçons’s first “anti-perfume”: Odeur 53, a blend of bizarre notes including oxygen, “flash of metal,” mineral carbon, nail polish, cellulose, burnt rubber and “flaming rock.”
I guarantee you that no fragrance designers at Coty are sitting around, dreamily licking D cell batteries and saying: “Hey! Let’s make a perfume that smells like an asteroid hitting a manicure parlor.” You want white lace and peach blossoms, indulge in a bottle of Jessica Simpson’s Fancy Love. Odeur 53 is not for those who need to be universally liked.

As if to push the point further, La Cintra proceeds to try on a garment that defies actual wearing. Nobody, not even the store's staff, can figure out how to actually get it on.
We have to give Cintra extra credit this week. If it is meant to be a slap in the face to her own critics, this column delivers it with a velvet glove.
Critical Shopper | Comme des Garçons: Fashion Up There Where the Air Is Thin By Cintra Wilson (NYTimes)
Comme des Garçons 520 West 22nd Street between 9th & 10th Avenues, Chelsea

Departures: Hickey Goes Dark On Grand Street Is The Label In Danger?

We were hoping that they were tougher than that.
Soho's Hickey boutique has quietly darkened its windows and shut its doors after nearly two years, possibly as a casualty of parent corporation Hartmarx's prolonged bankruptcy proceedings earlier this year.
Now that the U.K.'s Esmerique Brands has fully acquired Hartmarx and saved its various labels, there has been something of an executive exodus not unexpected after a changing of hands. While the more traditional Hickey Freeman boutique was moved to Madison Avenue several months ago to shed its costly Fifth Avenue lease, funky younger brother Hickey remained in the Grand Street location where it had survived a messy leak that shuttered the shop for five months only a few weeks after its debut.
While we are disappointed to lose the shop, word comes that Hickey has also lost its Creative Director and Brand Manager to Rogue's Gallery and J.A. Apparel respectively.
Hickey has a unique combination of unmatched brand heritage mixed with contemporary, yet accessible styling made in traditional, American clothing factories. Unfortunately, the label's website has no new Fall goods for sale even in late August, which is not a good sign, although Bloomingdale's is featuring a page of merchandise for pre-order. We certainly hope the brand doesn't get lost in the reorganization shuffle.