THIS WEEK ONLINE: Alexander McQueen, Zac Posen, Mulberry, Billy Reid, M. Patmos, Proenza Schouler, Marina B, Filson, Dr. Martens, TAG Heuer, Banksy

Here is your weekly sampling of some of the brands you can expect to find on the bigger online Flash Sale Sites this week. You should click over to the sites themselves for a full schedule of events, and be sure to check for the correct start time for each sale. Happy clicking!

GILT GROUPE

Schutz Footwear, Portolano Accessories, Zac Posen, Gucci, Corso Como, Tahari ASL, Rivkah Friedman, Versace Scarves, Filson, N.D.C. Made By Hand, G-Star, Emporio Armani, Baume & Mercier Watches, K-Way, Incotex Ivory, Banksy Art —join HERE

RUE LA LA

Alexander McQueen, Donajd J Pliner, J.McLaughlin, Mariposa, 7 For All Mankind, Nicole Miller, Ben's Gardden, KEEN, Scentbird, Charriol Jewelry, Rossignol, Rachel Zoe, Juicy Couture, Christopher Radko, Saucony, Bulova, BergHOFF, Marina B, Hanna Andersson Kids, Laudni Vidni Handbags, TAG Heuer, Andrea Candela, J Brand, Bertha Watches —join HERE

BELLE & CLIVE

Alexander McQueen, Tory Burch, Diesel Sunglasses, Chan Luu, TOD's, Gucci, Robert Graham, Prada, Mulberry, Zaikamoya, Salvatore Ferragamo, Canali, Givenchy, Invicta Watches, Original Penguin —join HERE

HAUTE LOOK

Free People, LORAC, Steve Madden, Stuhrling Watches, English Laundry, Billy Reid, ELEVENPARIS, Joseph Abboud, Velvet by Graham & Spencer, M Missoni, Nine West, Kenneth Cole, Jessica Simpson, Dolce Vita, Reebok, Marshall Artist, Dr. Martens, PX Men —join HERE

MY HABIT

TOD's, Calvin Klein, Sebago, M.Patmos, Proenza Schouler, Kevia Jewelry, House of Harlow 1960, Rockport, Ellen Tracy, Ole Henriksen, Carolinna Espinosa Shoes, Philip Stein Watches + BLACK FRIDAY Blowout Sales All Week —join HERE

BROKEN CHAIN?: C.Wonder Responds To Bad Buzz(feed)

C.Wonder is once again in the news, and not in the best way.
Today's WWD has unidentified Burch Creative Capital (the owner of C.Wonder) staffers refuting an Friday afternoon item in Buzzfeed that claims the three year old chain is planning to close nearly two thirds of its stores and switch to a wholesale brand with a limited number of freestanding stores as opposed to a retail chain.

It's hard to know exactly what the plans are for the chain which has proved popular with customers for its stylish and well-priced offerings, but has weathered unfavorable comparisons to Burch CEO Chris Burch's former wife's label, Tory Burch, culminating in highly public lawsuit between the companies. Though the legal squabble is now in the past, Buzzfeed claims that the acceleration of C.Wonder's expansion was a result of Mr. Burch's desire to prove that his new chain was more than a less expensive version of his ex-wife's thriving brand, calling it a "revenge retail" project. The article suggests that newer locations of the 32-store chain were chosen in haste and not carefully considered for premium placement in malls. The allegedly overexpanded company is said to be planning to close 20 stores after the Holiday Shopping season and convert to a wholesale model, though the article notes that many potential retailers who already have a strong business relationship with Tory Burch might not be eager to risk offending her and her brand by bringing in C.Wonder under the same roof.

While the specific claims of the article have not been addressed by Burch Creative Capital, WWD offers an official response from a company spokesperson over the weekend which suggests that it may not be off the mark:

"As a start-up business, we continue to look at ways to enhance our business model and in that regard we are committed to being an omni channel company pursuing retail, wholesale, e-commerce and international opportunities. At this time. We are rationalizing our store fleet and will be focusing on our most profitable stores."

What does this translate to? It sounds like some stores will definitely be closing, probably early next year. How many remains in question. But it's worth noting that when the Monika Chiang brand was shut down by Burch last year, the company was cagey about confirming its demise even as its stores were shuttered and its remaining stock was cleared out at deeply discounted sample sales, so it's hard to know what to make of official word from the company. It looks like we will have to watch and see exactly what happens with C.Wonder which just opened its third Manhattan store on Lower Fifth Avenue near the Flatiron Building. The next few months will tell us a lot about C.Wonder's future and what will become of the chain. Stay tuned.

Burch Creative Capital Refutes Reports of C. Wonder Store Closures (WWD)
Exclusive: C. Wonder Is Closing Most Of Its Stores (Buzzfeed)

 

AUSPICIOUS DEBUT: COS To Open In SoHo In 2 Weeks

We have all been waiting and wondering when H&M's other more upscale chain COS would finally open its doors, and our friends at RACKED finally have a definitive date. COS will open on December 5th at 129 Spring Street between Greene and Wooster Streets, exactly two weeks from today. While H&M's more contemporary chain & Other Stories appeared to have a much faster turnaround between announcement and opening, COS has been a long time coming after its opening was initially projected last Spring. Who knows  what caused the delays, but now we have a confirmed countdown. While New York was to have the chain's first U.S. location, it turns out that Los Angeles scooped us last month with a store a lot of industry watchers didn't even know was being built. So they got the glittering launch party with plenty of stars. We don't yet know what kind of festivities are planned for the new SoHo store, but we are likely to hear a great deal more about it over the next two weeks. Stay tuned.

TEMPORARY LODGINGS: Saint Laurent To Jump Fifth Avenue For A While

We knew this would be happening at some point, but the big Saint Laurent flagship store on east 57th Street is finally about to get the full Hedi Slimane treatment. Now that the SoHo store and three in-store shops at Saks and Bergdorf's (Men's and Women's) have been fully Slimane-ified, they are, apparently, finally getting around to bringing the boutique at 3 East 57th Street up to aesthetic code and having the official store design installed. Regular customers won't have too much trouble finding Saint Laurent's temporary home. It's just on the other side of Fifth Avenue at 3 West 57th Street (above), in the same place that so many other Midtown boutiques (Coach, Chanel, Burberry etc.) have used during their own renovations, but before Saint Laurent moves in, it needs its own sprucing up before it will be suitable to house the super-persnickety designer's collections.
Of course, the least interesting part of this whole scenario is how the permanent Saint Laurent store will look after its makeover. We can pretty much picture it right now, because all Saint Laurent retail spaces look exactly the same now, just as if they were Starbucks or 7-Elevens. We can safely predict that there will be lots of white and black marble with glass and chrome, and probably some boxy, minimalistic black leather upholstered furniture. We like to think that maybe they will surprise us with some unique design touches, but we aren't holding our breath.

THE WINDOW WATCHER: Bergdorf's Goes Artsy for The Holidays

Barneys wasn't the only store that unveiled its windows this week. Bergdorf Goodman also lifted the curtains on its Fifth Avenue windows which, this season, are devoted to the arts —all of them.
The Bergdorf's team, led by senior director of visual presentation David Hoey, decided to devote each of the windows to a major art form including literature, architecture, theater, painting, music, dance, sculpture and film. each window was designed separately out of its own set materials such as neon lights for the "Theater" window (pictured above), fabric, soft sculpture and needlework for "Literature" and nothing but paper and old blueprints for "Architecture". As always, the windows reveal incredible workmanship upon close inspection, drawing lingering crowds and making them pretty hard for folks like us to casually photograph. As they do every year, however, Bergdorf's has nearly all of them shot in detail on its own blog 5th/58th, which is the best place to see them if you can't get there in person.
Next week: Bloomingdale's and Saks unveil just before Thanksgiving.

Holiday Windows 2014: Inspired (5th/58th-Bergdorf Goodman)

THE WINDOW WATCHER: Barneys Finally Hits The Right Note For The Holidays

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As we have mentioned before in the past few weeks, Barneys New York's experience with the Holiday Promotion season has been problematic to put it politely. This year, however, the folks in the head office seem to have gone to great lengths, and even greater expense, to reverse that unfortunate streak.
And it looks like they have succeeded by finding creative collaborators in film director Baz Luhrmann and his wife Catherine Martin whose glitzy and often loopy sensibility recalls that slogan that Barneys' management has been busy trying to erase from its customers' memories: "Taste! Luxury! Humor!"
This season's slogan "Truth · Beauty · Freedom · Love" comes straight from the Bohemians of Luhrmann's 2001 film Moulin Rouge. While the store may never revive Simon Doonan's wicked, comical caricature windows for the Holidays that brought such acclaim in the store's past, through collaborating with Luhrmann and Martin, they have revisited the sense of fun and surprise that has been lacking in the past few years. While we didn't get to catch "Elphresh" the dancing elf, who apparently appears on the hour to dance in his "Love" window, we caught a few moments of Celestia the Ice princess tentatively skating around her somewhat ironically titled "Freedom" corner display (in the gallery above). There is a mechanized owl for "Truth" and a mesmerizing kinetic sculpture called "The Spirits of the Snow" rightfully occupying the "Beauty" window. Acapella supergroup Pentatonix has recorded a special soundtrack for each window, and, of course, the dramatic decorative structure over the façade is more the sort of thing that stores will re-use for several years, although it is hard to imagine Barneys re-installing this again without the Luhrmann's cooperation. 
And that, aside from the general pleasure in seeing the store finally get it right, is the other thing that sticks out about this whole promotion: the staggering expense it must have taken to pull it all together including the lavish one-time only production number the store staged on Monday for the unveiling. Inside the store, there is less decoration except for some custom-designed gold wallpaper wrapped around the a few columns on the main floor and holiday motifs at the escalator landing displays. The store has put most of its money on the outside for maximum visibility, which makes sense on a certain level. Barneys has spared no expense this Holiday season in part because the store is under great pressure not to botch the season again, especially after last year's regrettable shoplifting profiling scandal. The good news is that it looks like they succeeded. After the jump, have a look at a video featuring a behind the scenes look at the promotion as well as some footage from the opening extravaganza which was, apparently, not to be dampened by soggy weather.

ALEXANDRA JACOBS GOES SHOPPING: Forced Euro-Merriment Edition

While the debut of H&M's contemporary women's fashion chain & Other Stories has been hotly anticipated, this week's Thursday Styles tells us that Critical Shopper Alexandra Jacobs is still missing the short-lived Guggenheim Museum satellite that briefly inhabited the building during the 1990s. Of course, the only thing The Shophound remembers seeing in that building was an Azzedine Alaïa retrospective, so maybe it's just as well that the building has long since been turned over to retail.
But back to the present day, when our shopper is plunging through the store's barrage of relentlessly upbeat slogans scrawled throughout the store, seeking to connect its wares with the notions that the clothes we purchase tell our personal stories. Perhaps they will inspire shoppers to spend a couple hundred dollars to join a community of storytellers in price-point-controlled fashion? maybe from a collaboration by an untested, relatively unheralded designer like Sadie Williams? Well, our shopper isn't buying it —well, she did, but she's not keeping it.

This did not make me feel “happy,” but on the contrary produced a hollow and aimless sensation, and so though I did buy one of Ms. Williams’s sweaters, from a cashier with a bold feather tattoo, I will probably take advantage of the store’s 30-day return policy and take it back.

 Is the store trying to hard, or is the New York shopping sophisticate simply too savvy to fall for its chain store charm, not matter how genial and sophisticated? H&M's even more upscale chainlet COS still expected to open its doors a few blocks away before the end of the year. It is officially Opening Ceremony-approved, but we shall soon see if our shopper remains resistant to the fast fashion giant's forays into upper markets.

Critical Shopper: All Together Now: Smile By Alexandra Jacobs (NYTimes)
& Other Stories 575 Broadway between Prince & Houston Streets, SoHo

SAMPLE CIRCUIT: Contemporary Sale Week With Rebecca Minkoff, Nanette Lepore, Theory + Todd Snyder For The Guys

This week's sale scene includes a bunch of Contemporary Sportswear favorites, lots of shoes and one up and coming menswear designer who, as far as we know, is entering the Sample Sale circuit for the first time. There's plenty of highlights to cover, so let's get started:

The week kicked off yesterday with popular fave REBECCA MINKOFF at 260 Fifth Avenue mixed with a windswept storm, so we heard that the opening day crowds were much sparser than usual. That's good for latecomers, which means that there will just be more left when the inevitable markdowns come later in the week. All reports say that there is the usual abundance of handbags and shoes.

Today brings one of NANETTE LEPORE's bonanza sales in the Garment District which is promising savings through Thursday the 20th on Fall 2014 apparel, shoe and accessory collections as well as her usual offerings of special items, this time including her Home collection.

Burgeoning women's sportswear RAOUL will also be offering savings on both its women's and men's collections starting today through Friday on West 40th Street near Bryant Park.

Tes, folks, it's time for another THEORY Sale. We can never keep track of how many of these there are ever season, but the one opening today will be at Clothingline featuring Stock and Samples for women and men through Sunday.

Futuristic cobbler UNITED NUDE will be holding its biggest sale ever featuring over 3,000 pairs of shoes staring today through Sunday. We hear that everything is under $75, so fans of chic but unusual footwear should make time to hit the Garment District sometime this week.

On a more luxurious level, LELA ROSE will be clearing out her overstock from the Fall 2014 collection on Wednesday through Friday. Expect savings of up to 75% Off.

Onward Kashiyama's showroom will be open for three days starting on Wednesday with the women's ICB collection designed by Prabal Gurung as well as more conservative J.PRESS offerings for men. This sale should include the final season of the Ovadia brothers' designs for the younger YORK STREET label before a new designer  takes over for Spring.

More chic shoes ore on the schedule starting Thursday the 20th when uber-stylist TABITHA SIMMONS' two day sale begins in West Chelsea at the immense Starrett-Lehigh Building. Look to save up to 85% off original retail prices,m but expect enthusiastic crowds.

Finally, menswear designer TODD SNYDER is holding what we think may be his first public sample sale starting on Friday through the weekend at his NoLita City Gym store. Included will be his main collection as well as his retro-luxe sweats for Champion.

That should be enough to keep any enthusiastic shopper busy, but there's still plenty more from LAUREN MERKIN, INHABIT, VELVET, CARLOS FALCHI, SHOSHANNA, JACK ROGERS, BARBARA BUI, BVLGARI  and more. keep an eye on our SALE ROLL at left for details on all the sales as well as late-breaking additions. Next week, a Thanksgiving Break before the Holiday Season starts officially.

THE WINDOW WATCHER: Tiffany's Covers Itself In Jewelry For The Holidays

For the past couple of years, Tiffany & Co. has been experimenting with all kinds of adhesive decals to decorate its Fifth Avenue and 57th Street flagship not just for the Holiday season, but for all sorts of other occasions like Easter or last year's The Great Gatsby retail promotion extravaganza. The results have been mixed, occasionally creating intriguing effects, but also subverting the inherent elegance and simplicity of the 1940 building's architecture. This year, however, the store has dropped the stickers and gone back to its roots, literally, with four immense firework-shaped pendants suspended from the roofline like diamond necklaces on steroids
That'll get prople's attention.
It's the sparkliest we have seen Tiffany's looking for the Holidays in years, maybe decades, and we haven't even seen at night yet to get the full effect. It even threatens to outshine the UNICEF Star suspended over the intersection that is set to be lighted for the season tonight. It is something of a challenge to the other three stores on the nearby corners, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Bergdorf Goodman, to see who can shine brightest for the next six weeks or so. This is the kind of competition we like.

THIS WEEK ONLINE: Ippolita, Bottega Veneta, Jason Wu, Kate Spade, Vince, Cuisinart, Brioni, Rebecca Taylor, Halston, Carmen Marc Valvo, Tracy Reese, Paul Stuart

Here is your weekly sampling of some of the brands you can expect to find on the bigger online Flash Sale Sites this week. You should click over to the sites themselves for a full schedule of events, and be sure to check for the correct start time for each sale. Happy clicking!

GILT GROUPE

Rachel Zoe, Hanky Panky, Natori, Ivank Trump Fine Jewelry, Jane Carr, Current Elliot, Seychelles, ML Monique Lhuilier, Tracy Reese, Kenneth Jay Lane, Saint James, 2(X)IST, Ivory + Mason, Zanerobe, Alexander McQueen, Missoni, Gilded Age, Paul Stuart, Ecoalf, Movado, Dogen Footwear, Bed:Stu, Luciano Barbera, Cuisinart, A&r Cashmere, Saint Parfum, Verlaine  —join HERE

RUE LA LA

Ippolita, Halston Heritage, TOD's, Clarins. Soia & Kyo, Peacock Alley, Marimekko Babies, David Meister, Theory, Ariat, Samuel B. Jewelry, VC Vince Camuto Signature, Fossil, Links of London, Anne Klein, Furla, Carmen Marc Valvo, Rebecca Taylor, Kelsi Dagger, Jean Dubost, Dawn Levy, Hello Kitty, Alternative Apparel, Argento Vivo, Lafayette 148, Michael Stars, Rivkah Friedman, Nespresso, Clarks, Nat Nast, CATHERINE Catherine Malandrino —join HERE

BELLE & CLIVE

Ray-Ban, Olivia Harris, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Valentino, Jared Lang, Salvatore Ferragamo, Three Dots, Blank NYC, Brioni, Lanvin —join HERE

HAUTE LOOK

Kate Spade, Vince, Cuisinart, Blowfish, Kevyn Aucoin, Prps, Mr. Turk, Royce Leatherworks, Kickers, Columbia, Ozone Socks —join HERE

MY HABIT

Alexander McQueen, ASH, Rivkah Friedman, Jason Wu, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tumi Outerwear, L.A.M.B., CATHERINE Catherine Malandrino, Clarins, Ahava, Cross Watches, Missoni, Zachary Prell, A. Testoni, Florsheim Socks, Chrostopher Fischer/Forte Cashmere, Timberland, MARC New York, Tailor Vintage, FILA, Hawke & Co., Cooper Jones —join HERE

VENTE PRIVEE

Vente Privee is shutting down its U.S. Operations at the end of the year, so this week they are holding super discount  Holiday Camp  sales to clear out excess merchandise at up to 85% Off retail prices. Expect major savings while they are still open, but be there at the dot of 10 AM —join HERE