Rogan Rises Above The Radar On The Bowery

For his first store, Rogan Gregory found an innocuous, easily missed location in Tribeca, but for the next Rogan store, a higher profile seems to be in order. The handbills are going up, in the designer's favored, occasionally illegible typeface with a message:

You can't stop what's coming.

like it's a virus or swarms of killer bees.
Apparently, now Rogan is going for some sort of world domination.
Well, we all need our goals.
Previously: Hide and Seek part IV: Rogan in Tribeca

Martin & Osa Gives Us A Sneak Peek

In the spirit of full disclosure, we have to admit that the folks at Martin & Osa, American Eagle's still developing grown-up division, have been plying The Shophound with drinks, hors d'oeuvre and gift bags for the past couple of days.
Listen, into every blogger's life some swag must fall, and heaven knows we have picked up all sorts of freebies during fashion week without having our opinions swayed. On Wednesday were treated to cocktails at the Thompson Hotel with some other Glam.com bloggers, and last night we hit the press preview for all three of the company's divisions, including AE, Martin & Osa and aerie, their lingerie division. More hors d'oeuvre. More drinks and more cute waiters.
We would, one might think, be hopelessly corrupted at this point, but in our own defense, we must point to our visit to one of the first Martin & Osa stores about a year and a half ago when we were already pleasantly surprised and charmed without the benefit of swag. From our point of view, it's always interesting to talk to retailers working hard to develop a new store concept and get their point of view. The M&O folks we spoke with were particularly eager to show off their updated e-commerce site and how hard they had worked to make it consumer friendly. Now that the nascent chain numbers twenty units, we were promised that a Manhattan store was in the works, which pleased us, because we have found them to be a chain store that city-folk like us could love.
This was confirmed last night when we saw the Fall preview. Clearly designed to do battle with Banana Republic and a newly luxed-up J.Crew, we liked the canny mixture of fashion trends and easy sportswear, especially that navy wool military jacket we might have to track down later this year.
At the other end of the loft, a flock of young models hung out doing their best impersonations of those merry bands of kids you see in the American Eagle advertisements. To their (and their stylist's) credit, they made the clothes look appealing, including a revamped denim collection. As for us, we can't complain about having 25 or so models hanging around just waiting for us to take their pictures, so look for some more shots after the jump.

Previously: Shophound Previews: American Eagle Hatches Martin + Osa

Let The Preview Hype Begin:UNIQLO's Wang and Loden Dager Photos Released

There's still some good pieces of Tim Hamilton's collection left at UNIQLO, and poor Juliana Jabour seems to be attracting the same level of interest from shoppers as she did on the first day (read: none whatsoever). Lets hope she's doing better in Japan. UNIQLO, however, is already looking a few weeks ahead when designers Alexander Wang and Loden Dager get their respective moments in the sun.
Our friends at RACKED pointed us towards UNIQLO's Japanese website where full previews of the two cult fave designers' special collections have appeared. The accompanying profiles and interviews should be very entertaining to all our Japanese-literate readers.
It looks highly appealing work from both designers, so get in line early on May 30.
UNIQLO Designers Invitation Project (Official Japanese Site)
Wangtime: Wang and Dager for Uniqlo, Revealed (RACKED)

Broome Street Prepares For The Mysterious "B"

The cryptic notice in the window of 91 Broome Street warns us:

Get ready...
"B"
is coming!

Okay. We're ready.
We're always ready.
What the hell is "B"?

Pottery Barn Clears Out of SoHo

Pottery Barn's Broadway location in SoHo is finally vacating the premises to make way for the upcoming Hollister flagship extravaganza opening next year.
While there are still several PB locations in the city, we expect them to pop up in a new location somewhere nearby, but in the meantime they are holding a store closing sale going on right now. While most of the current merchandise is being transferred to other branches, the store still has glassware and other more fragile items at 20% off as well as tons of other items from floor model furniture pieces to random items from the stockroom reduced as much as 75%.
Have at it while it lasts, which won't be long.
Pottery Barn 600 Broadway at Houston Street, SoHo

A Peek Inside Muji Midtown

The Shophound loves catching a glimpse inside a store that's on its way to being finished.
As we have mentioned before, many were not overly impressed with the first Muji store that opened in SoHo last year, particularly those who where familiar with their much larger flagship stores in Japan. Our brief glimpse through a door someone has carelessly left open (Thank you!) strongly suggests that the location to open this Spring on West 40^th Street in the new New York Times building will be much larger.
The drawback? It's on West 40^th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
When was the last time you went shopping in the shadow of the Port Authority Bus Terminal? And we're not counting the Hell's Kitchen Flea market.
Truly, besides several Garment District fabric stores, the only other retailer of note on this block is Midtown Comics, and they're on the second floor.
We hope this doesn't turn out to be a fabulous store in a wretched location, but it wouldn't be the first one.

Den's Latest Pop-Up: Robert Geller

A few weeks ago, Den, the East Village's continuing pop-up store debuted it's latest temporary tenant: New York's Robert Geller.
Despite the tiny space available, the folks at Den constructed a skeletal house inside the store to show off the German-born designer's second menswear collection under his own name.
Fan's of the defunct label Cloak will recognize some of the subtle finishing and details that Geller brought to that collection as an assistant before he struck out on his own. This time, the military and nautical inspired looks are more relaxed and casual.
As with a previous tenant, Tim Hamilton, Den has found itself filled with appealing, interesting but expensive clothes. It's worth noting that the latest wave of New York's men's designers are as interested in jeans and casualwear as they are in suits (at which Geller excels). Unfortunately, this has given rise to the unfortunate phenomenon known as the $300 cotton hoodie sweatshirt.
Geller is only one of many who have given their own costly spin to what was once lowly gymnasium-wear, which only leads us to wonder, "How much do we have to pay to look like a schlump?"
Next up at Den is footwear maker, Common Projects, known for their luxurious, minimalist, and yes, expensive, sneakers.
Robert Geller at Den, 330 East 11th Street, East Village

Is The Bank Epidemic Over?

After the John Varvatos shop opened on the Bowery, everyone (including us) had the same qualifying refrain: "Well, it's better than a bank"
As it turns out, the space probably wouldn't have become a bank anyway.
Even six months ago, the rampant expansion of bank branches in the city resulted in the alarming displacement of many a retail business including, most infamously, beloved institutions like The Second Avenue Deli. It seemed that banks were popping up everywhere, sometimes two to a block even in quieter, residential neighborhoods. They were willing to offer rents above market rates for a prime spot, and landlords were only too happy to oblige. With the current woes in the financial world, those days may well be over.
The Real Deal reports that Commerce, Chase, Citibank and Wachovia among others have pulled back on their plans for additional branches, and consolidations in the industry may even lead to some branch closures.
And so, here is the unexpected benefit from an economic downturn: Increasing rents stabilize, and overinflated ones even drop a bit. While it may not be enough to keep every independent store from losing its lease to a chain store, it may just put the brakes on runaway retail rents for a while, and possibly save your favorite neighborhood shop.
Bank branch bust opens doors to retailers (The Real Deal)

Whole Foods Goes Plastic-Free Today With Free Bag Giveaway

Well, we thought we would be done with Earth Day crap, but it seems we are getting hit over the head with it wherever we go, so we will pass along the hype to you, dear readers.
As Whole Foods customers know, today is the day the natural supermarket chain forever rids itself of those pesky plastic bags that are choking our world.
Naturally, they should be congratulated for doing their part to protect the environment, although we will miss those evil bags. Of course, in doing our part to conserve and avoid waste, The Shophound has re-used every one of our Whole Foods plastic bags as garbage bags, a purpose which they served exceptionally well. Now we will have to use the far inferior ones from the Food Emporium, or, heaven forbid, actually go out and buy little plastic garbage bags.
There's no winning with this environmental crap.
To console us, and every other WF customer, the chain is distributing free re-usable shopping bags today with all purchases. This hardly solves our looming garbage bag issue, but we do love free stuff, and it will help shrink the alerady growing stack of brown paper grocery bags forming in our apartment.

Earth Day Repurposing News: Cheyenne Diner Relocates and Buildings Get Recycled In The South Bronx

Now that is is thoroughly incorrect to ignore Earth Day we have found some relevant news to impart in honor of the environment.
Here at The Shophound, we are as interested in the cityscape as we are in the stores that comprise it. The Cheyenne Diner at 34th Street and Ninth Avenue, one of the few remaining railcar diners left in the city, was closed earlier this month much to the disappointment of many fans and nostalgists. Once again, real estate interests were the culprits. Today we have news that it will be picked up and moved in its entirety to Red Hook, saving it and relocating it closer to the hipsters who will better appreciate its kitsch charms.
On a similar note, we don't often (or ever) get to the South Bronx. We know. It's shocking news, but we have word that a new store is opening there selling recycled building materials mostly coming from demolitions and renovations. Run by the GreenWorker Cooperative, ReBuilder's Source had its grand opening this week, and offers low-cost repurposed and overstocked building materials as well as reduces the huge amounts of waste created by the city's constant construction.
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Cheyenne Saved (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
Greening the Bronx, One Castoff at a Time by David Gonzalez (NYTimes)