The sample sales are coming fast and furious as the summer closes. This week brought the heavy hitters like Prada, Intermix's combat shopping excercise and, of course, the continuing Barneys Warehouse Sale. We hear that the Jimmy Choo sale was a nightmare of waiting and line cutting, and we simply didn't have the patience to wait on the sidewalk for Mulberry's sale. We did manage to catch the Hermès sale yesterday with mixed results. First, the pluses. The pristine white loft in the Metropolitan Pavilion serves as pleasant backdrop for Hermès' relatively neat racks and shelves. We had to wait only for the elevator and a fast bag-check line. There was still plenty of stuff around midway through day #2. The sale was actually staffed with salespeople to assist you, and individual tents in signature orange served as changing rooms at the back of the sale, thus avoiding the undignified sample sale strip.
Now the minuses. Here's the obvious one: Hermès is so expensive that
even at a huge discount, the stuff is still astonishingly costly. A
$6,500 coat would still be a whopping $2,000 at least. As usual for these
types of things, the age of some of the goods appeared questionable.
It must be noted that if you are expecting to score a Birkin or Kelly
bag, don't waste your time. The bag selection consisted almost entirely of variations
on the L.L.Bean canvas tote.
Seriously.
Continue reading "Sample Sale Report: Hermès At 60% Off Is Still Insanely Expensive!" »
Hermès finally flung open the doors of its much-talked-about downtown branch today after a star studded launch party last night. The French luxury legend is a pioneer of sorts in the neighborhood which is soon to be home to a Tiffany while every company from Nordstrom to Jil Sander is said to be casing the area for their own outposts.
Island of luxe though it may be, it is here, insisting on calling the 4,000 square foot store Hermès Wall Street despite the fact that the actual store does not actually front Wall Street at any point. It is in fact on Broad Street, directly across the way from the New York Stock Exchange, the most iconic of locations. The question is will they make it there, or will the store die a slow death, bereft of enough like-minded neighbors?
We think they'll live, and to ensure their survival, the company has predictably merchandised this branch with an eye clearly focused on the district's mostly male and mostly rich weekday professional population. If Madison Avenue is the place to go for an Hermès scarf or to get on the Birkin bag list, then this is the store to visit for a tie. Or perhaps a zillion ties.
Continue reading "Hermès Kicks Off the Downtown Luxury District" »
We promised we would return with a window report, and this time the winner is Bergdorf Goodman once again. Sorry to be redundant, but there really is no competition, at least not this week. Everyone else's displays just looked like merch, merch merch. Somehow Bergdorf's made a set of co-op windows with www.nyc.gov work brilliantly. This one we refer to as Subway Twister, a tribute to the Department of Transportation that has a perception switch we love. The gorgeous Missoni clothes are just a complement to the composition. After the jump, see Departments of Sanitation, Parks and Recreation and the New York Public Library windows as well as some other runners-up.
Click photo for a larger view
Continue reading "The Window Watcher: Subway Twister Edition" »