GAP Design Editions Launches With a Whisper

While the Gap is clearly the Johnny-come-lately to the whole designer collaboration craze, it must be said that they hold the record for shortest lag time between announcing the project and getting the merchandise to the floor. The Gap Design Editions collections from Doo.Ri, Thakoon and Rodarte in conjunction with the CFDA|Vogue Fashion Fund were launched this morning a speedy two weeks after they were announced, and judging from the early morning response, they might have waited a bit longer to let the news sink in and build up anticipation. You can see the crowd there was...invisible. While the event has been well publicized within the fashion and retailing industry, it is safe to guess that the shopping public has not yet been whipped up into anything like the frenzy that greets H&M's annual designer events. To be fair, we were at the Fifth Avenue Gap flagship at around 8:30 this morning, so all we can really say is that the only other people moved to get up that early to see the goods were...other bloggers! We ran into Leslie Price, the woman steering the RACKED ship who tried on every piece for a detailed critique you can find here.
The entire program consists of nine garments, with each designer contributing two tops and a dress in unlined white shirting cotton, and by unlined we mean they definitely require a slip or some other undergarment (or not, if you're that kind of gal). Nothing retails for over $88, and each piece bears the signature of its designer in subtle ways, like the Rodarte tops with their delicate picot edging and architecturally pleated necklines. Overall the product looked good, especially for the prices, but we only wish the Gap had put a little more of their resources towards promoting these young designers and a little less towards those pervasive commercials with the screeching Ethel Merman soundtrack (Yes I can, caan, caaaaaan! Seriously. Ethel Merman!)
Previously:
Finding Gap's Designer Shirts
More Designer Collaborations: Doo.Ri, Thakoon & Rodarte Hit the Gap

Finding Gap's Designer Shirts

Our friends at RACKED have done everyone the invaluable favor of ascertaining exactly which Gap stores in Manhattan will be carrying the new Gap Design Editions collections by Thakoon (pictured), Rodarte and Doo.Ri. Thanks to their research skills, we can reprint the useful information including store opening times below:

YES: 680 Fifth Ave between 54th and 55th Sts, opening at 8am
NO: 1212 Sixth Ave between 47th and 48th Sts
YES: 60 W 34th St at Broadway, opening at 9am
YES: 1466 Broadway at 42nd St, opening at 9am
YES: 734 Lexington Ave at 59th St, opening at 9am
POSSIBLY: Queens Center, 90-15 Queens Blvd, Elmhurst, opening at 10am

We will also add that the Flatiron store at 17th Street & Fifth Avenue will also be carrying them, and they open at 10 AM. We're not sure how pervasive the publicity for this event has been, since it was only announced a couple of weeks ago, but we still suggest getting there early, knowing how the sizes you want will go fast no matter which store you go to.
Where to Buy Gap's New White Shirts (RACKED)

Home Notes from SoHo: Muji, CB2 and Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams

Home furnishings stores are giving us our news fix today. We're still feeling unmoved to leave the house even though the deluge has finally stopped, but you can bet we will get up off our ass when Muji opens its second US store in SoHo. (We couldn't resist that gem of a segue. Okay, maybe it's not so much a gem as a ring from a Crackerjack box) Muji is the Japanese home furnishings products company opening its first store in the upcoming New York Times Building. They have now signed up at 455 Broadway just below Grand Street for what will be their second store. Muji is a shortening of the Japanese words mujirushi ryohin, which means 'no label, quality goods', and who doesn't like those?
Just a few doors down will be the Manhattan debut of CB2, the lower priced version of Crate & Barrel. It will be their third retail store for the new brand, and they have taken 18,000 square feet at 451 Broadway. We expect the one two punch of these stores to increase interest in the area south of Grand street, where until now, most of the stores have had more of the seedy feeling of Canal Street than the glitz found a blocks or two uptown.
Over on Lafayette, we can look forward to Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams adding a freestanding shop to their in-store space at ABC Carpet & Home. They will occupy the ground floor of One Kenmare Square, the striking, wavy building at 210 Lafayette Street.

Is Penney's Going to be the New Gimbels?

WWD is reporting that JCPenney is this close to signing a lease in Manhattan Mall, just a stone's throw from Macy's.
Where? What is this Manhattan Mall I keep hearing about?
Remember, that's where Steve & Barry's is? The store Sarah Jessica Parker is working with? Yeah, whatever, you'll be running there in a couple of months.
There are all sorts of variables to the deal, which is as yet unsigned, most importantly, where in the mall is the store going to go? While the building once housed the entirety of Gimbels, it has been segmented, and much of it is now office space. To fit in a store the size that Penney's would want would, at the very least, mean a lot of relocation and construction. In recent years, Penney's has been working furiously to upgrade it's product assortments to go compete more with Macy's rather than it's traditional competitor, Sears. This would give them a chance to do it in the location of Macy's onetime rival, Gimbels.
Hello, Herald Square: Penney's Said Near Deal in Macy's Backyard (WWD)
Previously: Sarah Jessica Parker Gets Bitten...by Steve & Barry's?

Welcome to the Tom Ford Show...Please Ask For Assistance

Tom Ford's long awaited showplace is finally open amid a flurry of gushing press and more than a little delay (it was supposed to open last fall). We won't speculate whether or not today's driving rainstorm is an omen or simply unfortunate, but now that the store has opened its doors, The Shophound has gone right in, wet shoes and all.
Ford has made a big deal about how he couldn't find any clothes to wear after leaving Gucci, and resorted to custom tailoring on London's Savile Row to supply his wardrobe needs. Surprised at the spartan shops and lack of pampering he found, the designer decided to improve on the experience and apply his own sense of luxury and showmanship to the upper echelons of menswear. In fact, shoes and leathergoods are stamped with the store's full address, much like a traditional English maker would have done. While we wouldn't dare second guess the man who turned Gucci into the most important label in the world, we can't help wondering if he has overcompensated just a bit and defeated his own purpose in the process. Is it opulent? Oh yes. Modern? Well...that may be another story.

Is This Thing Removeable?

We don't know what it is about Parasuco. Why are they so irksome to us? The Shophound really tries to ignore them, and then they have to go and stick a big clunky marquee on what was otherwise an elegant building. Luckily they left the grand interior of this former bank building mostly intact, but they couldn't help themselves from slapping a '90s-style industrial looking glass and metal awning on the front of their shop. Of course, it is over a deeply recessed doorway, so there is no actual need for any awning at all. Does it tell you something that we care more about the building than the actual store inside? We have criticized them before, and we thought we might check them out and give them another chance. All we can say is that the featured item we saw when we walked in was a pair of heavily faded, flared jeans. Zzzzzz. We hate to be the ones to wish that a store would pack up and move on, but please, they're stinkin' up the place.

Blog Spotlight: Face Hunter

The Shophound has been a fan of The Sartorialist for a while now, but we just recently discovered it's flip side. Face Hunter is the work of a photographer who identifes himelf as Yvan le Terrible. Yvan combs London, Paris and the other chic capitals of Europe for cutting edge dressers usually after dark at parties and clubs. While The Sartorialist is all about refined personal style, Face Hunter goes after the trendy, the experimental and the exuberant. If you want to know what they're wearing in the clubs of Geneva (and who doesn't?) this is the blog for you.

Canal Jeans Leaves Broadway...Again

When Canal Jeans Co. gave up it's longtime home to Bloomingdale's, tons of people never even noticed that they had simply moved up to 718 Broadway in NoHo. The new store was a mere shadow of its former incarnation, or maybe this was just a store whose time had passed because the space appears to be available. What's left of Canal Jeans seems to be being broken down and packed away and sold on sale. Will they move somewhere else? Will anyone care of they do? More importantly, who will take the space?

Some Things Never Change: Undercover at Abercrombie & Fitch London

British writer Tom Mitchelson was scouted and hired to "model" at the New Abercrombie & Fitch store on Savile Row in London. Naturally, he couldn't resist turning the experience into a scathing article for the Daily Mail. It appears that Abercrombie is just as whacked in London as it is here.
Some choice excerpts:

I threw myself even more furiously into my only practical function: pursuing customers zealously and refolding the moment they ruffled anything. Soon I couldn't stop. I was heading for an obsessive compulsive disorder.
One model told me he'd been instructed to smile till his jaw ached. The room was empty at the time: "What do they want me to smile at: the clothes?" he muttered.
The company told us it was an equal opportunity employer. Funny, because all its visible staff are young and beautiful.
The unattractive, the overweight and the disabled just don't seem to make it on to the shop floor. In fact, there is no lift and therefore no way for wheelchair users to work or shop upstairs.
As far as age goes, at 29 I was probably the oldest there. I thought that if the law permitted it, managers would have exercised quality-control over the customers, too, and I might be assigned to blow a whistle if anyone old or fat ventured in.

I don't get out of bed for less than £6.50. Fortunately this was A&F's hourly rate. They trade on the inexhaustable supply of beautiful dimwits for whom the excitement of being hired as "model" matters more than the pay scale. I got the impression that, ideally, they'd like us to pay them, rather than the other way round.
The men who stood semi-clothed at the entrance earned an extra £1 an hour. But they had the required A&F six-pack. The new way of selling clothes seems to be not wearing them.
Then there was the little clutch of dancers who have to jig around endlessly on a sort-of platform. Some of the customers thought this was cruel.

Gee, I don't recall any dancers in New York!
Poseurs Paradise! What's it really like to work at the new Abercrombie & Fitch store? by Tom Mitchelson (Daily Mail via Towleroad)
Previously: What, No Drink Tickets?: Abercrombie & Fitch

The Bowery Whole Foods Free Sample Report

So we found ourselves at the Bowery Whole Foods again yesterday because we needed, like, tomatoes or something, and we can report that we had no fewer than eleven different things to sample, which is to be expected at a fancy, newly opened market. Here's what we were offered:

Black bean dip

Golden tofu

Cocoa rice krispy treats

Four flavors of sherbet

Cheddar cheese

Navel oranges

Three different types of pesto

Three different kinds of olive oil

Black Forest bacon

Butterscotch walnuts

What can we say? We went in feeling peckish and came out stuffed, and they weren't even giving out french fries. We thought this would be a good time to remind our gentle, and undoubtedly well-mannered readers about free sample protocol.

Take only one sample, like the little sign always says. You can always come back again and pretend you are a different person who hasn't had one yet.
Don't wait at the table waiting for them to put out more. You will look like a hog.
Try to avoid waiting in a crowd to get your sample. Again, hoglike appearance, and you are likely  to be clogging the aisle.
Take your sample and step aside. Don't sit and chat at with the sample-giver, blocking the table. There are probably people waiting behind you. they are probably us, and we are probably getting pissed.