Mike Albo Goes Shopping: More Than We Needed to Know Edition
July 19, 2007
Photographs byCasey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
We have been a booster for Mike Albo, we really have, but in today's Thursday Styles our favorite of the current Critical Shopper crew seems off his game. Maybe its because we simply can't muster up much excitement for the new Wall Street branch of Thomas Pink. It's only the fourth one in Manhattan. It's not that there's anything wrong with Thomas Pink. It's perfectly fine, and they make lovely, colorful shirts, and are an excellent source for anyone looking for a well priced, high quality, classic shirt with a little flair.
It always struck us, however, as a starter brand for people who weren't quite ready for the more expensive and exclusive Turnbull & Asser or Hilditch & Key, which are honest-to-goodness Jermyn Street bespoke shirtmakers, royal warrants and all. Pink was actually started in 1984, with a catchy name and a retro logo which suggested a heritage that wasn't actually there. Now a part of the well-oiled LVMH luxury machine, the brand has jumped from advertisements on the back pages of The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker to a fully fledged luxury chain with an ever growing series of stores which are remarkably consistent in their design and focused product offerings, kind of like McDonald's in the way that Big Macs are always the same no matter where you are. It has even spawned its own imitator in Charles Tyrwhitt.
Frankly, we're not completely sold on the Financial District luxury boom either, which so far consists of exactly three stores. It's not as if it will ever rival Madison Avenue or 57th Street. Opening an expensive shirt store on Wall Street hardly seems daring. Really, one wonders why this location is Pink's fourth store in the city instead of its first. What took them so long? That said, it will surely save some good customers a trip to midtown.
As for our Mike, well, we told you that the column was really about you, not the store, but your embarrassing personal information should at least be amusing.
...I suppose this isn’t a store for people like me with money issues who go to Barnes & Noble and buy self-help books like “Credit Hell: How to Dig Out of Debt.” These clothes are more suited for the hard-working finance types who have that Suze Orman glint in their eyes and who, when going to Barnes & Noble, select titles like The 48 Laws of Power and You, Inc.
Oh Mike, we don't want to know that about you! It's sort of depressing, and has cast a pall over the rest of your droll observations about shopping. It ruined our image of you jauntily shopping around town when not pursuing your other career as a glittery, dancing performance artist.
Keeping it real is overrated.
Critical Shopper: Colors to Match Every Shade of Credit Card by Mike Albo (NYTimes)
Thomas Pink 63 Wall Street, Financial District, also 520 Madison Avenue, 1155 Avenue of the Americas and The Shops at Columbus Circle.
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