MOLLY YOUNG GOES SHOPPING: NoLita Eclectic Edition

Today's Thursday Styles has sent Critical Shopper Molly Young the kind of quirky, personal boutique that seems to be a rarer than ever breed in a Manhattan retail scene that is slowly being choked by rents that only banks and chains can reasonable thrive under. In fact, A Détacher, the NoLita mainstay has been forced into its own migration south from Mott Street to Mulberry Street in what is the also shrinking colony of Little Italy.
Thankfully, the store's disarmingly random merchandising philosophy appears to have survived the few block's journey intact. "The store feels personal to a degree verging on taboo, like sneaking upstairs at a dinner party to poke around the host’s walk-in closet," she tells us, and concedes that it suitable more for fulfilling the whimsical wants of customers who don't actually need anything.
Of course, that purpose could apply to a vast number of New York retailers. It's the individual, often inscrutable touch that sets A Détacher apart, and also its lack of concern for more conventional store presentation.

It’s also an experiment in behavior modification. The quantity of goods at A Détacher is spare, and few are displayed at eye level; a retail consultant would walk in and pass out from the sheer defiant inefficiency of the merchandising.

—which is frankly, on a certain level, the kind of thing we do need more of.

Critical Shopper: Eclectic and Personal, A Détacher Outfits a Niche Audience By Molly Young (NYTimes)
A Détacher 185 Mulberry Street, between Broome & Kenmore Streets, Little Italy