The Shophound

JON CARAMANICA GOES SHOPPING: Circle Of Friends Edition

Critical Shopper Jon Caramanica seems to have gotten all emotional after his visit to SoHo's eclectic boutique/gallery/coffee bar/general hangout American Two-Shot. In this week's Thursday Styles, he begins by declaring the city to be made up not of neighborhoods or demographic segments, but of groups of friends whose interactions shape its history. So clearly he's in kind of a different mood this week.

It is the unique, relaxed ambiance of American Two-Shot that has put him in this frame of mind. The store is apparently less a business endeavor, than a depository for a the results of friends' hobbies. There is repurposed vintage wear (using vintage in the loosest way that really just means "used"), and whimsical, handmade items that sound like they may not seem as witty and clever once removed from the confines of the store.

To shop the store properly, you have to treat it more like a clubhouse, with layers you can’t see at first glance. That’s because, as much as this is a retail environment, it’s the expression of the will of a group of intimates, who speak one another’s language, and for which immersion is required.

We actually started wondering how this place would ever survive in a bustling retail hub like SoHo with its aggressively priced rents. It sounds more like something you might find on a side street in a Brooklyn neighborhood transitioning from blight to hipster, and then he lets on that the women's offerings include actual fashion collections from young designers like Porter Grey and Timo Weiland. So it's a real store after all, but one that may make you want to chuck it all to make hand-screened t-shirts and run a two-seat coffee bar.

Critical Shopper: Gaining Entry to That Stomping Ground By Jon Caramanica (NYTimes)
American Two-Shot 135 Grand Street at Crosby Street, SoHo

POP-UP ALERT: Herman Miller Launches Its New Collection With A SoHo Pop-Up

The Shophound is still traipsing around Los Angeles right now, but we couldn't help noticing that back home in New York, Herman Miller, the legendary furniture and design brand is opening a Pop-Up store in SoHo today to introduce the Herman Miller Collection, the company's current portfolio of modern furniture designs from contemporary designers, iconic figures like Charles and Ray Eames, Isamu Noguchi and important designers of the past whose names may be less well known like Ward Bennett, whose striking scissor chair is pictured on the left in the image above. PSFK tells us that the Pop-Up will run during New York Design Week and through the month of July, and will include artwork from galleries in the area as well as a curated accessory area with items chosen specifically to coordinate with Herman Miller's distinctive modernist design aesthetic.

Herman Miller Pop Up Shop, May 9th through July 1st at 68 Wooster Street between Spring & Broome Streets, Soho
Herman Miller New York Popup Shop Can Furnish An Entire Home Art And All (PSFK)

ALEXANDRA JACOBS GOES SHOPPING: Retro Redux Edition

This week's Critical Shopper, Alexandra Jacobs returns to the Thursday Styles by taking on the new Haute Hippie boutique in NoLita. Something about Haute Hippie has always bugged The Shophound, but it's not the actual clothes. Maybe it's the literal name of the label, which doesn't leave room for much surprise. Still, "hippie" is a look that seems to have no expiration date now that we have hit the age of incessant decade surfing in fashion. We're not entirely sure that Jacobs totally gets that the rich hippie concept has been around since long before Tom Ford's YSL peasant blouse of 2011. It pretty much goes back to the days of the original Hippies (see Giorgio di Saint'Angelo, Thea Porter, Zandra Rhodes etc.), an early example of designers lifting inspiration from the streets. After a brief, obligatory ode to rich hippie #1, Talitha Getty, whose sordid days in Morocco have been ghoulishly over-romanticized by too many designers, we get to the store itself. Jacobs seems mildly charmed but not necessarily bowled over by what her cheerful salesperson suggests,

Becca from Boston kindly entrusted me with a floaty delicate taupe tunic top that she said had been hand-beaded in India ($795). It was gorgeous, even though the idea could be approximated for a fraction of the price at Do Kham, the veteran Tibetan emporium down the street, which I fear will eventually suffer a hostile takeover from a gluten-free cupcake shop.

God forbid! This city is lousy with cupcakes.

Critical Shopper: Well-Tended Flower Children By Alexandra Jacobs (NYTimes)
Haute Hippie 9 Prince Street between Elizabeth Street & The Bowery, NoLita

NOW OPEN: Entrepreneur Takes A NoLita Corner

Sometimes it seems to jaded New Yorkers like The Shophound that every store is running together with the same popular favorite labels that get replicated from shop to shop. Entrepreneur, a week-old men's boutique in NoLita aims to remedy that situation with a refreshing combination of lesser known brands from Japan and independent labels from Brooklyn. The shop opened its doors last Saturday in a blocky building on the corner of Kenmare and Elizabeth Streets, and though they did put a bird on the banners hanging over the door (clearly they haven's been watching Portlandia) there is nothing twee inside. The store's sporty merchandise mix includes the menswear trends that have slowly crawled their way over here from Japan like the current camouflage craze (look for great printed shirts from Alex Hunter), as well as some that are bound to make their way here soon (Expect animal prints to start spreading over menswear any season now). One caveat. Like most Japanese labels, many of this store's brands run on the small side while the Brooklyn brands tend to be cut for hipsters (read skinny). Still, it's always a treat to find thing you don't see everywhere, so Entrepreneur fills a welcome niche.

Entrepereneur 29 Kenmare Street at Elizabeth Street, NoLita

BACK IN THE BLACK: Where Will Versace's Flagship Land In SoHo?

Yesterday's WWD featured a lengthy article about Gianni Versace SpA's return to profitability. Slipped in among accounts of the many business maneuvers that restored the brand's ever-teetering fortunes was the news that among several new stores planned for the newly flush brand, a Versace flagship store would open in SoHo in June or July. It's the first we have heard of such a store, which is remarkable since it is scheduled to open in three or four months. The mystery is where this store will be. Prince Street? Spring Street? Mercer, Greene or Wooster? We're all ears.

Versace Swings to Profit, Sets Expansion (WWD)
Versace (Official Site)

LEMONADE FROM LEMONS: Marc Jacobs Makes The Most Of A Bad Situation

What do you do when you are faced with an unexpected, aggravating misfortune that is beyond your control?
If you are Marc Jacobs, you make a t-shirt.

You may remember hearing a few months ago that Jacobs' entire 46-look European sample line for Spring 2012 was stolen off the Eurostar train between London and Paris. So far as we know, the clothes have never been recovered, throwing a wrench into the designer's European Press activities, and to remind people of the designer's predicament, he has placed a mock "Wanted"-style bulletin in the window of his Mercer Street Collection boutique with a strangely Unabomber-esque sketch of a totally unidentifiable perp.

Of course, the poster is also available as a t-shirt, presumably for sale inside the store. We're not sure that the proceeds from the tees will make up for the expensive theft of an entire sample line, but a little humor can always ease the sting of a costly loss. As the bulletin states: "The thief is still at large and considered dressed to kill."

Marc Jacobs 163 Mercer Street between Houston & Prince Streets, SoHo

COMING SOON: The Only Time When More Acne Is A Good Thing

It is a triumph of product over branding that the fashion company known as ACNE has been so successful over the past decade or so. Perhaps nobody at the Stockholm-based collective knew at its inception that they chose a name which also refers to a common skin condition that makes teenagers miserable and keeps dermatologists in business —or maybe they did. Perhaps they chose the name Acne over alternatives like Psoriasis or Eczema. Who knows? People love their jeans so much that it really doesn't matter what they called themselves.

Anyway, the point of all this is to say that Acne, which has been represented for the past few years with a charming but modest and somewhat out-of-the-way store at 10 Greene Street between Canal and Grand Streets is doing so well that they need more space. They will be opening a new, larger location at the corner of Greene and Grand, right across the street form the current epicenter of fashion cool, Alexander Wang. The new space, formerly the De La Espada design showroom, has 3,000 square feet on the street level which should be more than enough room for Acne to show off every style of jeans they make as well as their sportswear and accessory collections. The new store is slated to open its doors in April. Leave your Clearasil at home.

JON CARAMANICA GOES SHOPPING: Fancy Basic Edition

In today's Thursday Styles, Critical Shopper Jon Caramanica finds himself at SoHo's BLK DNM hoping to find some of the stripped down caché he sees in the fashion industry's invisible insiders. Unfortunately, he finds that the perfect basics that former J.Lindeberg chief Johan Lindeberg has created for his carefully curated new brand might not be as perfect as they are supposed to be,

The denim was handsome and sturdy, though available in only two cuts: Jean 5 ($190), pretty skinny; and Jean 9 ($170), only a little skinny. The beat-up denim shirt ($150) in gray or black is nearly perfect, as stiff as if it had been dropped in the deep fryer for a few seconds, but scraped as if it were rescued from a Goodwill in Tulsa. Were you inclined to buy a sheer white T-shirt that could double as maternity wear and Alexander Wang was sold out, this could be your second stop.

Caramanica seems too perceptive to us not to be able to sniff out the pretension that lurks in the corners at BLK DNM, but just in case you can't quite tell which side of the fence he is on regarding this store, he mentions that the store's recent party for louche Purple Magazine impresario Olivier Zahm featured Lindsay Lohan as an honored guest. Shouldn't that pretty much tell you all you need to know?

Critical Shopper: Official Outfitter, Fashion Week Pit Crews By Jon Caramanica (NYTimes)
BLK DNM 237 Lafayette Street between Spring and Prince Streets, SoHo

NOW OPEN: Diesel Black Gold Gets A New Look In SoHo With A Contemporary Showcase

Diesel has carved out a unique position for itself with a long, continuing reign at the top of the premium denim market, but this week it is turning its focus to its Black Gold label, which pulls the brand away from its core material into the more rarefied designer arena. Though the line's women's runway show happens this afternoon, today also marks the opening of the Contemporary Showcase for Black Gold in SoHo. Regular neighborhood shoppers will recognize the Green Street address as that of the brand's former premium premium Denim Gallery, but now the Italian jeans giant has tasked interior designer Ryan Korban with transforming the space into a sleeker, more refined environment for the first and only store that exclusively carries Black Gold's men's and women's collections. Yesterday, The Shophound took a break from Fashion Week to get a preview of the new shop. As styling assistants completed fittings for today's runway show around us, Korban walked us through the transformed store, showing how he departed from his signature black and white scheme to include softer browns and beiges including zebra wood display tables, an upholstered suede wall and two huge aluminum monoliths that break up the loftlike 2,500 square feet. It all makes for a perfect setting for Black Gold designer Sophia Kokosalaki's striking collection, which, with its intricately worked leather accent pieces, will either look great with your jeans, or more likely, make you forget about denim altogether.

Click on the thumbnails below for more views of the new store

Diesel Black Gold Contemporary Showcase opens today at 68 Greene Street between Spring and Broome Streets, SoHo.

ALEXANDRA JACOBS GOES SHOPPING: Miracle Dress Edition

This week's Thursday Styles will bring Critical Shopper Alexandra Jacobs to Stella McCartney's newly relocated SoHo boutique in search of the fabled Octavia Dress. This, apparently, is the latest cunningly designed frock to hit the scene that promises to hide the wearer's every figure flaw, in this case, by actually superimposing a the image of a new body shape over whomever it is covering. Genius!
Also, sold out.

Actually, flattering though it may be, one would still need to start out with a reasonably slender frame in order for this skintight dress to have its full effect, but the shapely appeal is obvious, and also moot, since all the starlets seem to have snapped them up. Anyway, Jacobs continues to shop, finding McCartney's new home far more hospitable in almost every way than its previous location. She notes that the staunch vegetarian designer has finally left the neighborhood famous for butchery for a place on the more environmentally fitting "Greene" street. Jacobs stays away from tangents this week in favor of high praise for the unlikely groundedness of the pop-star bred designer. "At its best," she writes, "Ms. McCartney’s work has always summed not baronial splendor, nor the grinding rigor of being famous, but a kind of wry whimsy about the puzzle of being female in the 21st century."

That is lofty praise indeed, though Jacobs leaves not with a miraculous dess, but some $25 children's leggings, an extravagant gift for a fashion savvy child who is getting started early on label chasing.

Critical Shopper: The Promise of the Cure-All Dress By Alexandra Jacobs (NYTimes)
Stella McCartney 112 Greene Street between Prince & Spring Streets, SoHo