The Shophound

Halloween Windows Report: Thrills & Chills On Bleecker Street

Lots of Bleecker Street's stores make an extra effort for Halloween windows, but it basically comes down to a battle between Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs to see who can concoct the spookiest display.
Ralph has the edge, of course, with four separate shops on the street to Marc's three (for now), but his sensibility leans more toward the genteel, with a Miss Havisham look in his women's store, and a more conceptual mannequin factory for the men. The obvious comparison would be the dueling side-by-side Great Pumpkin displays in both designers' children's stores. We'll call that one a draw.
We were a bit more repulsed by the pair of explorers in Ralph's RRL shop (below) who appear to have sat down one day a century ago and never gotten up, but they still had that pristine hyperstyled Polo Shop look despite their lack of flesh.
In contrast, Marc has mostly eschewed the idea of showing merchandise in his windows, turning his women's Marc by Marc windows into a dark, grisly swamp complete with animated ghouls emerging from the sludge —too dark, unfortunately for us to successfully photograph. It was, however, the Marc by Marc Accessories shop (pictured above) that impressed us the most with a simple concept executed perfectly: Heaps of skulls and bones neatly arranged as a macabre wall covering with a warning clearly posted at eye level. "Stop. You are entering the valley of the shadow of death..." Simple, to the point and yet really, really gross.
Match goes to Jacobs.

Moves On Bleecker: It's Official (Almost) Marc Takes Biography Bookshop

We have been speculating over the fate of the Biography Bookshop space for a while, and the building's owner has confirmed to WWD what many suspected: Marc Jacobs will be moving in to open an as yet unannounced new concept store. Jacobs President Robert Duffy hinted several months ago that there were expansion plans afoot on Bleecker Street, but offered no specific details, and the company is still mum on the topic. Reportedly, the designer's lease on the enviable 500 square foot corner shop at 400 Bleecker will begin in February 2010, which suggests that a new store will be open next Spring, making a whopping six freestanding stores for Jacobs in the West Village —four of them on Bleecker.
As for the bookshop, as reported before, it will be moving further east on Bleecker and renaming itself Bookbook.
Marc Jacobs Set for Another Store on Bleecker by Sharon Edelson (WWD)
Previously, Extended Relocations: Biography Bookshop Transitions Down The Street

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

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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

Windows Report: Marc Jacobs Goes For Fluorescent Bondage On Bleecker

Marc Jacobs has made a switch from the flower festooned décor from from six months ago in his Stuff store on Bleecker. Casual passersby this weekend discovered a striking composition in the windows of mannequins bandaged to the walls with day-glo duct tape, as if trapped by a giant spider designed by Stephen Sprouse. Considering how much Jacobs has done in the past few years to promote Sprouse, we figure he has earned the reference, though the display also makes something of a visual pun on the newly ubiquitous Hervé Leger bandage dress.
Campy, kinky and slightly disturbing, the new look fits perfectly with the new summer merchandise inside. The tumbling blossoms have been replaced with gleaming colored lights spotlighting a fresh shipment of fluorescent hued accessories of all types mostly priced under $100 (many under $20) and available to those skilled in elbowing crowds aside.
Marc Jacobs Stuff 385 Bleecker Street, West Village
Previously: Redecorating Alert: Marc Jacobs Has A Flower Fit

Bleecker Street Report: Marc Jacobs Now Offering Porsches ...Sort Of

We are still not quite over the bitter disappointment over not making the 700 person cut for Marc Jacobs' dramatically reduced runway show list (that's disappointment, not actually surprise), but since we are in pretty good company, we won't hold too much of a grudge.
There have been all sorts of things in Marc's Bleecker Street store's window –giant swans, Santa, The Easter Skunk–  but so far, this, to our knowledge, is the first automobile auction it has hosted. Well, it's not a complete automobile. Apparently, it's just the shell of a Porsche 924 painted with a new logo design combining Marc's name, a fist and the circle-A Anarchist's symbol. For those of you feeling subversive, countercultural and revolutionary but not in need of a non-working Porsche, the design is also available on a $24 t-shirt and a backpack.
The car really is available for the best offer, and proceeds will go to the New York School Of Medicine Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group. Delivery, however, is not included, or offered. You get to haul it away yourself.
Marc by Marc Jacobs 403-5 Bleecker Street, West Village

Specific details after the jump

Redecorating Alert: Marc Jacobs Has A Flower Fit

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Keeping things interesting during the slow January season, Marc Jacobs has updated the seasonal décor at his Bleecker Street "Stuff" accessory boutique. Replacing the melange of racy black and white photographs that filled his windows last season is a romantic curtain of silk flowers. It's a welcome contrast to the gloomy weather New York has been faced with lately, and it's not just in the windows. Inside the store, the walls and even the ceiling are also festooned with colorful blossoms, with Jacobs' budget priced handbags and totes nestled on flowered shelves.
It's all just far enough over the top to make us smile and remind us that Spring is actually only a couple of months away.
Marc Jacobs Stuff 385 Bleecker Street, West Village

West Village Forecast:Another Bleecker Street StoreComing From Marc Jacobs

We promise we are going to write about someone else soon.
In WWD's article about Marc Jacobs' game of musical stores in the West Village, the company's president, Robert Duffy, divulged that another lease had been signed on Bleecker Street for a large space that is currently occupied and will become vacant by the end of this year.
This, of course, leads us to the guessing games of figuring out whose lease is up and whose space can actually be considered "large" on a street of stores which can mostly be considered modestly sized at best. So much of the three block stretch's retail space has turned over in the last couple of years that there are only a few potential locations that qualify, but we want to investigate a bit further before we start issuing deathwatches. (We hope it's not the Biography Bookshop.)
Duffy says only that the new store will be devoted to a new concept that the company has never tried before. Home furnishings, perhaps, or maybe an entirely new apparel line?
Stay tuned.
Marc Jacobs Plans Expansion in West Villlage (WWD)
Previously: Today In Reshuffling: Marc Jacobs Makes A Men's Move In The West Village

Today In Reshuffling:Marc Jacobs Makes AMen's Move In The West Village

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Well, we just said he gives us no shortage of material.
Marc Jacobs did some much needed switching around with his West Village colony of stores. While his Women's and "Stuff" Accessories stores are staying right where they are, the West 4th Street Collection store proved to be just a bit off the beaten path for $1500 handbags, and its stock will be consolidated into the Collection flagship in SoHo. Marc's teeny tiny Men's store (that's the store that's tiny—not the men) has now been moved to the lovely corner location with the arched windows from it's shoebox-sized Bleecker Street spot, which in turn will be converted to sell the Little Marc Jacobs children's line. The former children's store will now hold Men's accessories.
As much as we like Marc, we have never held back harping about how undersized his Men's store was. (What can we say? We're a blogger. Part of our job is bitching about stuff.) We have to say that we are happy to see it moved to a space that will be able to accommodate more than one customer at a time. Now you can actually see the merchandise, and while a few store design tweaks are probably still in order, the improvement is immeasurable. As for concerns about traffic on a less prominent corner, the store had no trouble attracting plenty of customers early on a Sunday afternoon. Moving Men's shoes and accessories to a space roughly the size of the entire previous men's store has left room for a few shelves of books, CDs and DVDs and other gifts. As for the newly relocated Little Marc, the more favorable location on Bleecker puts it right next door to Ralph Lauren's newly converted children's store, creating a sort of"power block" for designer children's clothes.
Marc Jacobs Mens Store now at 301 West 4th Street at Bank Street

Designer Tribute Department:Louis Vuitton RevisitsStephen Sprouse In January

If all goes as planned, January will be Stephen Sprouse month as the art, publishing and luxury worlds combine to pay tribute to the late designer. While lasting commercial success sadly eluded Sprouse, he has become an admired cult figure among the fashion crowd and especially with collectors who covet his increasingly rare original pieces.
Deitch Projects will open a Sprouse retrospective called "Rock On Mars" on Jan. 8 at its Wooster Street gallery and Rizzoli will publish "The Stephen Sprouse Book" shortly thereafter. Joining in the fun, and likely to garner the most attention, Louis Vuitton will be revisiting its 2001 collaboration with the designer with new versions of the graffiti monogram he designed as well as a signature day-glo rose motif that will adorn bags, shoes and a special capsule apparel collection that will all be available on January 9th.
The special collection was suggested by the gallery, and Vuitton will not be reissuing the original collaboration pieces, but offering new variations in a similar vein. “I tried to take what Stephen had done at Vuitton and then kind of flip it in my head, and make it Vuitton’s work for Stephen, not Stephen’s work for Vuitton,” creative director Marc Jacobs tells WWD, “I just felt it was a funny way to play with it, to pretend to be Sprouse for a bit, and use the work that he did, and then bring it back to the work that he did before I collaborated with him.” With Sprouse's heyday, the 1980's, an increasingly influential touchstone for the fashion world, a visit with the designer's colorful, rock-influenced aesthetic should be a welcome and timely distraction for our suddenly gloomy times.
To further promote the event, Jacobs has been photographed by Terry Richardson for Harper's Bazaar in his favorite outfit- nothing, of course- strategically carrying a Sprouse/Vuitton duffel, keeping the image publishable in a major national magazine.
Vuitton Brings Back Sprouse (WWD)
Marc Jacobs Exposes The Latest It Bag (Harper's Bazaar)

New York Fashion Week Day 4:Marc Jacobs Sets The Pace

Last season, in response to a scandalously late show the season before that, Marc Jacobs moved his show to the final showtime of Fashion Week, which had traditionally been the place of honor for the leading designer of any city's runway schedule. Yves Saint Laurent held it in Paris for decades, and for years, Calvin Klein owned the time slot in New York. The move was not only a response to irritated showgoers,  but also seen as a way of claiming the last word on the season's shows.
It was a one-time aberration, however as Marc moved back to Monday nights this season. It seems that instead of having the last word, he would rather set the pace, and that he did with a blockbuster of a show that, like his best work, will delight many and bewilder others.
There are a few things that can be counted on at a Marc Jacobs show. A crush at the door, a choice smattering of celebrities and bleacher seating in the Lexington Avenue Armory are all part of the Jacobs template, but nobody knows what will actually show up on the runway beyond that it will be different from last season. Happily, Jacobs did not return to his tradition of late showings, and shortly after 9PM, as crowds were still pushing into the venue, loudspeakers announced that the show would be starting iminently, treating early arrivals (like us) to the schadenfreude spectacle of big name editors dashing over the runway to claim their seats before the lights went down. We skipped the Gottex show (which we particularly enjoy) to make sure we would be more than on time. There's no way we could have made it in otherwise. Sorry Gottex, we still love you.
Jacobs' longtime set designer Stefan Beckman created semicircle stage set of mirrored doors through which models emerged to Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue", walking past a wall of mirrors set at angles to reflect flashes of their images to those on the other side of the catwalk until they rounded the corner to walk back. It was a mesmerizing background for the clothes that mixed grunge, gleaming printed fabrics, vintage looks and Hollywood glamor with a whiff of Yves Saint Laurent in a masterly brew that editors will jump on and retailers will dissect and reformulate into highly salable looks for customers. While nearly every model carried a handbag, unlike in many shows that are heavy on accessories, this was no excuse to pile on merchandise. The elaborately patterned bags were integral components of each look, but will probably sell like candy on their own.
Jacobs delivered was what anyone who regularly attends fashion shows anticipates but doesn't receive often enough: a Fashion Moment, the kind you can feel in the air and in the breathless anticipation of the audience. To witness it, he called back nearly every celebrity who had ever attended one of his shows, and added a few new ones. In attendance were Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Beckham, Winona Ryder, Nicole Ritchie, Martha Stewart, Sofia Coppola, Jay-Z (sans Beyoncé), Kim Raver, Kanye West, Sean Avery, Róisín Murphy, Becki Newton, Kelly Osbourne, Kim Gordon, Rachel Zoe, Kevin Aviance, Perry Farrell, Natasha Lyonne, Stephanie Seymour, Helena Christensen, Padma Lakshmi, Lauren Hutton, Jay Alexander, Matthew Settle, Joel Schumacher, and seen later at the party, Anne Hathaway and Elijah Wood. So many celebrities in one place, and he wasn't even handing out awards.
The Rundown comes after the jump, and just for you, dear readers, our own shaky video of the finale.
Enjoy!