ALEXANDRA JACOBS GOES SHOPPING: SoHo Re-Appraisal Edition

In today's Thursday Styles, Critical Shopper Alexandra Jacobs returns to the beat with a visit to jeweler David Yurman's new boutique on Prince Street in SoHo —his second in Manhattan— that shows what a difference a new location can make.
For Jacobs, as is likely true with many potential customers, Yurman had been dismissed as a yuppie jewelry designer churning out his signature gemstone studded silver and gold cable bracelets for the uptown set. It is pretty easy to make this assumption as those cable collection classics still get prime display case space in Yurman's counters at Saks and Bloomingdale's, but the designer's latest store showcases a different, more adventurous side of his work. There is an expanded display of the company's men's line, designed by the designer's heir apparent, his son Evan, but it is Yurman's work with less conventional materials that turns our shoppers' head,

While I could well imagine the meditating male machers of Manhattan 2014, stockpiling young Yurman’s chewy leather bangles and titanium tags in between their readings of D.T. Suzuki, Eckhart Tolle and The New York Post horoscope pages, I was inevitably more interested in loot for the gals, like the turquoise torsade necklace ($5,400), very Mermaid Parade, that lurked in staging areas with names straight from Jim Henson in fantasy mode: Labyrinth, Willow, etc.

So was just a simple contextual change all it took to revitalize David Yurman's fashion image? It's probably more complicated than that, but it seemed to be enough to change our shopper's perception, and certainly enough to get us to check out the new store.

Critical Shopper : At David Yurman’s Store, Science Lessons From a Jeweler By Alexandra Jacobs (NYTimes)
David Yurman 114 Prince Street,between Green & Wooster Streets, SoHo