The Shophound

NEW FRONTIERS: Saturday's Surf Heads West (Village)

What started as a charming surf-inspired shop/coffee bar/lounge in SoHo is morphing into a fully fledged lifestyle label as Saturday's Surf , just been named one of GQ's Best New Menswear Designers for 2012, will be adding a West Village outpost sometime in the next couple of months at the corner of Waverly Place at 17 Perry Street.  We would have to assume that this will be in the former home of Doma Cafe and Gallery (another hybrid enterprise pictured above) an empty retail space right on that very corner just waiting for exactly such a tenant.

While there are no exact details beyond the vague time frame anounced in a recent WWD article on the label's Asian expansion plans, in which co-owner Josh Rosen states, “There’s a wonderful residential feeling over there, and it’s the ideal neighborhood for us.” It is indeed a particularly idyllic corner even though it is a few steps away from Busy Seventh Avenue South, and like its upcoming Tokyo and Hong Kong stores, it is expected to replicate the laid-back vibe of the popular if compact SoHo store with an espresso bar and, hopefully, an outside lounge out back. We don't know it this spot has a backyard for the lounge deck, but given the type of building and neighborhood, it's an even bet.

Saturdays Surf to Open Asia, N.Y. Stores (WWD)

MAKESHIFT MOXIE: Freemans Sporting Club Gives New Meaning To The Temporary Store

Perhaps it's because its building on the corner of Bleecker and Christopher Streets has been covered in scaffolding nearly since the store opened about a year and a half ago, but The Shophound only just noticed last weekend that Freemans Sporting Club moved its West Village location half a block down the street to 343 Bleecker, right next to Comptoir des Cotonniers. When we commented to one of the sales staff that the move looked like a better location, he laughed and admitted that it was particularly nice not to be in a building that falling down.
Well, that is always a plus.

In fact, the new store is only a temporary location that Freemans will be using until major structural repairs are completed at its previous home, but you may not immediately realize its ephemeral quality after a look at its well appointed interior. The elegantly appointed store is actually a cunningly crafted stage set of a store that can be quickly removed and re-assembled whenever the permanent space is ready to be re-inhabited. In a process exhaustively chronicled by Secret Forts, the folks at Freemans, devotees of authentic Americana, decided to turn to the cheap copies of the expensive antiques they might really want for their store, and quickly transformed a long-empty storefront with all sorts of visual tricks including a remarkable amount of faux bois painting. As Freemans mastermind Taavo Somer tells the blog,

The underlying concept is an authentic fake. Instead of faking a “real” American shop with the trappings of tailoring and products from overseas wrapped in old glory, we wanted to be authentic in what we are doing. We actually are an authentic American made brand, and this is our authentic temporary shop.

In other words, they took a bunch of old stuff and tarted it up to make a whole new/old/fake/real thing. It's just meta enough to delight your average hipster, and at the same time, the perfect setting for Freemans' widely admired classic clothing and accessories.

We actually thought that the space, on a better traveled block of Bleecker, might be better for business than the one it substitutes for, but seeing how cleverly the folks at Freemans have created it, we wouldn't be surprised if they could make a destination out of a basement in the middle of nowhere.

Freemans Sporting Club Temporary Store 343 Bleecker Street between Christopher and West 10th Streets
Field Report : Freemans Sporting Club, Bleecker St, NYC. (Secret Forts)

HOLIDAY GIVING: Leffot Auctions Boots For Charity

The Shophound's favorite shoe boutique, Leffot, has joined forces with Wolverine, the shoe company, not the superhero, to auction off a limited edition pair of the brand's signature 1000 Mile Boots to benefit GlobalGiving’s project helping orphans in Japan rebuild their lives post-tsunami.

While Leffot tends to trade in more more rarefied handmade foorwear from Europe and England, the store has been instrumental in elevating Wolverine from a humble workboot maker to a leader in the revival of American heritage brands. The 1000 Mile Boot has been a lynchpin in this story, and one could argue that it has been Japanese clothing enthusiasts who originally turned American customers on to the dormant value of the everyday clothing brands they once took for granted, so it all comes full circle in a way.

Starting to day, you can bid at eBay on boot #1 of a limited and numbered edition of 1000 Wolverine 721 boots based on an archival pattern and made from Horween Leather Company’s Color 8 shell cordovan in a size 10 (pictured above). The auction will continue through December 22nd. Ordinarily, the boots would retail at $725, but as they have been bid up to $500 already at the time of this post, we expect they will go for much more with the entire selling price going to Tsunami Relief. The original, American-made 1000 Mile style in Horween Chromexcel leather usually goes for about $340 at Leffot and other retailers (and sadly almost never go on sale), but this is a extra opportunity, if you are a size 10, to send some still very much needed help to the victims of a horrific natural disaster and get a pair of sweet, limited edition boots that will last for as long as you ever want to wear them. Everybody wins.

The boots will be on display this evening at Leffot's West Village boutique from 6 to 9 PM along with the entire Wolverine 1000 mile collection, so you can try them on for yourself, and just try not to be seduced by the rest of incredible shoes Leffot regularly has on display.

Wolverine 721 LTD Boot #1 Auction for Japanese Tsunami Relief at Leffot 10 Christopher Street at Gay Street, West Village

SCENT SPECIALISTS: Jo Malone Fêtes A New Bleecker Street Branch

Though it has been quietly welcoming customers for a few weeks, Jo Malone officially toasted its latest boutique last night with a party hosted by Marcus Wainwright and David Neville of the neighboring Rag & Bone boutiques and glamorous couple Lucy Sykes and Euan Rellie. Most recently a modest bakery, the jewel box of a shop on the corner of Bleecker and Christopher Streets is now filled with merchandise of a more fragrant sort. Decked out in the brand's signature cream and black color scheme it offers the London-based label's complete line of non-gender specific scents meant to be worn alone or mixed together to create a personally calibrated, multilayered olfactory experience.

The shop joins the Jo Malone boutiques on Madison Avenue and in Grand Central Terminal as the brand's third freestanding Manhattan boutique, and re-establishes a downtown beachhead for the brand after its original Flatiron Building boutique was shuttered a couple of years ago. It also joins sister brand M.A.C as well as Nars and a recently refurbished Diptyque on Bleecker Street for a bigger beauty and fragrance presence on the small but coveted retail stretch.

As guests shipped Champagne and nibbled on tiny canapés suited to the fashion flock, they were invited, in lieu of gift bags, to choose their own product from the store's entire inventory to be wrapped in a personally decorated box. Needless to say, someone is getting a perfume present from The Shophound in a couple of weeks, which we wouldn't normally announce in a blog post, but the SEC has gotten all prickly about such things these days.

Jo Malone 330 Bleecker Street at Christopher Street, West Village

 

OPENING FESTIVITIES: Jean-Michel Cazabat Fêtes His Bleecker Street Boutique

Last night, French shoe wizard Jean-Michel Cazabat celebrated the opening of his new flagship boutique on Bleecker Street with a glittery cocktail party. The Shophound stopped by for a glass of Champagne and some hors d'oeuvres (served exclusively by a crew of gorgeous, willowy black women. Make of that what you will).

What used to be the gloomy home of the Pure Dark chocolate store (seriously, it might have survived if they added a few light bulbs to that place) has now been transformed into a luxe salon with tufted walls, a "virtual" fireplace at the center, and a gilded grid on the back wall to display M. Cazabat's wares.

We have to admit that we used to think of Cazabat as a pricey label along the lines of Brian Atwood or Giuseppe Zanotti, but somehow (probably through the marvels of Chinese manufacturing) he has brought his prices down to the $250 to $350 range for his women's line, which now looks a lot more expensive that it is. Oddly, his Italian-made men's shoes still run in the $500 to $600 range for a small but smart selection.

There was only so much room in that place, so we didn't hang around too long. We missed R&B singer Maxwell, Naeem Khan and Bergdorf's Linda Fargo, but we did manage to glimpse current fashion icon Shala Monroque in a furry sleeved dress, and designer Ralph Rucci with muscle-y former Project Runway castoff Jack Mackenroth tagging along. Make of that what you will.

Jean-Michel Cazabat now open at 350 Bleecker Street at West 10th Street, West Village

CHAIN GANG: Ralph Lauren's Rugby Stores Are Open On Bleecker Street

Ralph Lauren has completed his Bleecker Street reshuffling that leaves his West Village stores devoted to specialized diffusion brands rather than his main collection. Last Saturday, he opened his second and third Rugby stores in New York City in the spaces that once housed children's and RRL shops. This being Bleecker Street, the shops are... compact, to say the least, with one for men and one for women. Rugby is Lauren's more "collegiate" line meaning it offers familiar Lauren looks in a trimmer, "younger" silhouette with an emphasis on those preppy classics that built his brand. It is also unique in that, for now at least, the label is only available in freestanding Rugby branded stores and online. These shops differ from the other, larger yet still cluttery Ruby store on University Place by being merchandised in a slightly more grown-up way for Bleecker Streets more grown-up customers with a focus on more tailored looks like the Italian-made suits we found in the men's store.

So Bleecker Street is settled for now, but it's hard not to think of it as a game of musical stores for Lauren and his neighbor Marc Jacobs who have ten stores in the area between them and at any moment could chose to shift their stores around and start the whole shuffling process all over again.

Rubgy by Ralph Lauren 380 & 390 Bleecker Street, West Village

CLOSING NOTICES: John Bartlett Departs

Don't let us mislead you. John Bartlett the designer is still very much among us, but he has closed the West Village boutique that bears his name.

The Shophound wasn't aware that Bartlett has thrown in the retail towel earlier this month until yesterday when we took a leisurely wander through the Village to discover the windows of his boutique covered over not to protect it from hurricane winds, but in butcher's paper indicating that the store had been shuttered permanently. On the door, there was a letter from the designer explaining that while he will continue selling through his website and designing the John Bartlett/Consensus and John Bartlett/Statements collections for The Bon-Ton Stores Inc., he has decided to devote more of his time to animal protection and advocacy causes, particularly the Tiny Tim Rescue Fund.

Bartlett has been increasing his involvement with animal causes steadily over the years, frequently using his store to host weekend adoption events with the North Shore Animal League. Though he showed (and wore) leather pants at his Fall 2010 show, by the time the collection hit his store, he had sworn off all animal products and announced that he would not stage another runway show until he could produce a fully vegan line that met his exacting standards. Bartlett created the Tiny Tim Rescue Fund in honor and memory of his own three legged adopted dog who became well known to customers as a part of the designer's logo as well as a frequent resident of the store. The fund supports rescue groups that pull animals from high-risk/high-kill shelters and provide medical care and fostering in order to find permanent homes for them. The fund receives sponsorship from Bon-Ton as well as 10% of all profits from merchandise sold on the John Bartlett website.

As for us, we'll miss John Bartlett's store. The designer has been a great friend to The Shophound since we walked into the store shortly after it opened to find him manning the register himself, as he often did on weekends. To his great credit, he has always followed his instincts in a way that makes his work uncommonly personal as well as commercially appealing, and we fully expect to keep hearing plenty from him in the future even without a store.

John Bartlett (Official Site)
John Bartlett/Consensus and John Bartlett/Statements available at The Bon-Ton Stores Inc.

After the jump, Bartlett's store closing letter in its entirety

BLEECKER BROWSING: New RRL Is Open On Bleecker With Another Set For SoHo And Twin Rugby Shops On The Way

We weren't expecting much news from a sultry July Saturday stroll down Bleecker Street, but leave it to Ralph Lauren give us some good material. His retail division has been even busier than we though reconfiguring his network of Manhattan stores. The new RRL store that took over his previous Men's and Women's Collection stores has opened. In fact, the complex remains two separate stores, but at least there seems to logical reasoning behind that. The larger store on the corner of Bleecker and Perry Streets carries the current incarnation of the RRL brand. After a rocky start in the '90s, RRL found its groove when it was recast as a premium denim collection with a rugged western edge. Now freed of its hyper-cluttered space up the street, the sportswear collection can be shopped without the inevitable likelihood of bumping up against other shoppers or the store staff. Not that there isn't clutter —it is Ralph Lauren after all— but there's more room to breathe, and the former women's store's extensive cabinetry has been scaled back and stripped of its pristine white paint. Another welcome discovery is the expansion of the RRL shoe line, which started last year with a couple of sturdy boots made in the U.S.A, and has been expanded to a full, domestically produced collection clearly aimed at Red Wing's and Wolverine's rabid fan base.

But what about the other shop? Since the two side by side spaces have not been joined into a single store, the former men's shop is now where Lauren is debuting a new Italian-made tailored clothing line under RRL's label. Hard finished woolen fabrics have been fashioned into suiting separates with generous 1940's style lapels and deeply pleated trousers. Patterns can be mixed and matched depending on how committed one is to the look. Though the pieces are finished and treated to look like they have been plucked from a vintage store, or better yet, rescued from a decades old trove of dead stock, they don't come cheap, with a suit easily topping $1,200 before you even add the only slightly optional vest. There are dress shirts and ties with the same rumpled patina available as well, along with an abundance of vintage shoes and accessories for those determined to dress just like Elliott Ness or Spencer Tracy. Lauren isn't quite finished with expanding his RRL presentation in the city yet, however. That Collection store at 379 West Broadway in SoHo that he ditched for more evocative digs on Prince Street is set to be converted to an even bigger RRL store. According to the Ralph Lauren website, it's "coming soon".

But that's not all, folks. There's still the smaller space on Bleecker left empty from the RRL move (below). It is going to be made over into a Rugby store along with what used to be the Ralph Lauren children's store down the street, one presumably for each gender. They will be the city's second and third for Lauren's more "collegiate" line after the main location on University place just south of Union Square. They should do quite well on Bleecker with the folks who shop at Gant Rugger and Hilfiger.

So, you see, they have been extra busy moving stuff around over at Polo Retail Headquarters. We almost feel like we will have to check around town to make sure that the rest of his stores are the same as they were a few weeks ago. After all, that NoLita RRL store space is bound to be turned into something else once it moves to West Broadway.

BLEECKER SWITCHEROOS: Marc Jacobs Shuffles His West Village Stores... Again

Last week everyone was comparing Marc Jacobs' duelling press pieces, one sympathetic in WWD, and another surprisingly prickly one in the New York Times.  The focus was on his CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award, which, even the designer admitted was a bit premature for someone under 50. However, the Shophound was paying attention to his stores, and we noticed that he has once again switched around his West Village stores, essentially returning them to the configuration of a couple years ago. His men's store (at right) has returned to its previous Bleecker Street space, once again creating an infuriatingly cramped shopping experience. The Little Marc children's store that most recently live there has moved back to its previous location at the corner of West 4^th and Bank Streets. Diagonally across that intersection, the lovely space with the elegant arched windows that most recently held menswear (below left) has been turned into a Marc by Marc Jacobs women's accessories store, something that was preciously missing from the colony of shops. Of course, one of Jacobs' larger spaces remains devoted to a recently opened bookstore which, while much admired by fashion folk, doesn't seem to make much financial sense at this point.

We're not really sure how all this should be interpreted, beyond a company trying to maximize its various retail properties, but it can't help reinforcing our opinion that Jacobs has long since outgrown the modest shops that currently serve as flagships for his many product lines. Plenty of luxury brands have gone to great trouble to ensure their representation on Bleecker Street —Burberry, Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren— but all of them have much larger stores elsewhere in the city that fully represent their collections. In fact, Lauren just moved his top lines off Bleecker Street entirely in favor of expanding the more casual RRL brand. While Marc Jacobs' main luxury collections are presented in a loftlike location in SoHo, his popular diffusion labels remain cooped up in tiny shoebox sized stores in a location that was at one time charming and offbeat, but becomes ever more mainstream with each passing day. Several months ago, Jacobs president Robert Duffy confirmed a long overdue Madison Avenue flagship store, which looks like it's going to take a while. Last week's Times article suggested that the Marc by Marc Jacobs line has been losing steam in stores like Saks and Barneys (which may or may not be true), so maybe it is time to give that label a needed boost with the kind of larger showcase it better deserves. A prominent, well executed retail store can go a long way to rejuvenate a label in the eyes of shoppers as well as complacent retail clients, but Jacobs' collection of tiny West Village shops, charming and quirky as they are, may not be quite up to that challenge.

MYSTERY SOLVED: Ralph Lauren To Move RRL Into Shuttered Men's & Women's Stores

Just before Memorial Day, Ralph Lauren quietly and swiftly shuttered his Bleecker Street Men's and Women's Collection stores with an unofficial assurance that they would be converted into some other retail concept. Well, speculate no more, the clouded over windows show that the stores will be turned over to the RRL denim and vintage-style sportswear label, as The Shophound had guessed (well, we kind of guessed a bunch of things, so it was really more like multiple choice). It's not a surprising move. His current RRL store is among the most cramped and cluttery on the street. The line has finally started to take off in the past couple of years, so an expansion is more than in order. With his new, larger Collection store on Prince Street, the smaller Bleecker stores hardly seemed like a significant representation of his highest end lines, in the general scheme of things.

We would assume that the two side-by-side stores would be connected to make the most of the poky spaces that typically characterize Bleecker retail, but the new RRL is slated to open by this Summer which technically starts in three weeks. Who can tell if three months is enough time to complete the necessary renovations, but with enough resources —and nobody has resources like Ralph— anything's possible.

Previously:
Why Is Ralph Lauren Ditching Bleecker Street? (6-26-2011)