American Apparel's Lower East Side Billboard Saga: Neighbors Triumphant

Well, the neighbors finally got fed up.
This week, after someone defaced American Apparel's now infamous billboard at Allen and Houston Streets, the T-shirt chain has finally removed and replaced it with a marginally less offensive one. Rather than the typical vulgarity one usually finds scrawled on subway posters, this bit of graffiti features classic New York liberal anger, ("Gee, I wonder why women get raped?" for those having trouble making it out in the image above) and while we don't necessarily subscribe to the "porn=violence" theory, we admire the neighborhood's determination to make their feelings about the billboard known, especially in the face of the American Apparel's insensitive indifference and lack of respect for its neighbors and fellow merchants.
Thanks to faithful readers like Jessi for keeping us abreast of the situation.
How'd they get up there anyway?
American Apparel vs. the neighborhood pt II (AnnieNYC)
New billboard image: Billboards: American Apparel Does It Doggy Style on Allen (Racked)

Earnest Sewn Branches Out

Earnest Sewn, an admitted Shophound favorite, seems to be taking the reported downturn in the premium denim market in great stride by opening a new boutique in the heart of its prime demographic's main stomping ground. The denim brand with the passionate cult following has landed in hipster central at the corner of Orchard and Broome street with a variation on its Meatpacking District flagship, An Earnest Cut & Sew. This location, called simply, The Earnest Sewn Co., has a smaller footprint and more of an emphasis on the core denim line, featuring the brand's signature central jeans tables displaying their infinite variations of cuts & washes reminding us why we can't seem to have enough pairs. Though there appears to be less sportswear on hand, they still offer piles of newly trendy Filson bags and luggage, Barbour oilcloth outerwear and down filled jackets made in collaboration with Canada Goose.  While the brand's distinctive rustic décor is in effect, the big picture windows at this location give it a brighter, sunnier atmosphere, an improvement over its Washington Street sibling's dark gloom. In place of that store's rotating pop-up shop, one corner here is devoted to Flower Girl, a full service event and design company, adding a romantic touch to its surroundings.
The Earnest Sewn Co. 90 Orchard Street at Broome Street, Lower East Side

American Apparel: The Neighbors Fight Back

Here at The Shophound we are mildy amused by the smutty and tasteless antics of American Apparel. We are not prudish. For example, we are not offended by Tom Ford's boobie-squeezing fragrance ads so much as we are amused that he thinks that it's suitable imagery to represent his company and products. There is a time and a place for everything, though we recognize AA's right to be as smutty or tasteless as they like. We, however, do not have an American Apparel billboard in our neighborhood, and while The Shophound can be entertained by its presumptuous vulgarity, Lower East Siders are getting incensed. We received the following comment from a reader, which you wouldn't see if you only read our front page:

I just contacted them [American Apparel] about this, write to:
REDACTED
I was told it was artistic, even after 45 other people in the neighborhood signed my letter saying it was over the top and that this is still a residential neighborhood, a 50 foot billboard of this is too much. They didn't care. the Sugar cafe underneath complained about this one and were told 'too bad'
the phone number of the woman in charge of that f'd up billboard is:
REDACTED

We redacted the phone number but you can find it in the original comment. We would note that American Apparel is now owned by The Endeavor Acquisition Corporation, a publicly owned company, so now there are a lot more people to answer for the company's imagery instead of just pervy old Dov Charney.
Previously: American Apparel is At It Again
UPDATE: As per the request of the original commenter, we have reproduced the comment, but we are removing the AA contact information. We have been informed that removal of the billboard is under discussion, which only goes to show that making your voice heard is always worthwhile.

American Apparel is At It Again

As a rule, we try to ignore American Apparel. They are just irksome to us in so many ways,  but our friends at RACKED brought their billboard at Houston and Allen Streets to our attention, so we sauntered over there to take a look It's an interesting new direction and yet it's worse than ever at the same time.
The artsy black and white image is a welcome departure from CEO Dov Charney's Terry Richardson-rip-off snapshot style. We thought for a minute that the new corporate owners The Endeavor Acquisition Corporation were trying to soften the company's visuals, and then we remembered that it's a picture of a topless female model wearing nothing but tights and sticking her bum in the air...like she's waiting for...well...let's just be polite and say a spanking.
Remember when people got upset about Calvin Klein ads?
They seem so quaint now.

Give Whole Foods Lemons and They'll Make...Beer

Reports from the Bowery Whole Foods have not been encouraging of late. We hear that the spacious store is often bereft of customers, and the management has tried all manner of promotions (Sunday Brunch, Free WiFi) to get bodies in the store.  Just today we saw the announcement for a "Bowery Block Party! (This week's theme: DIPS)" on Wednesday nights from 6 to 8 featuring storewide sampling.
You know things are tough over there if they have to remind people that Whole Foods has lots of free samples. Of course, this being Manhattan, they should have no trouble getting lots of dips to show up.
Oh, they're serving dips! (Look, they set themselves up for that one)
We had suspected that the store might have been a little bigger and more luxurious than the neighborhood was ready to handle, and there's also the possibility that Whole Foods has focused too much attention on downtown locations (coming soon: Tribeca) while there isn't a single branch north of 59th Street where the city's wealthiest neighborhoods lie.
Anyway, it looks like circumstances could be improving for them very soon. The store was famously unable to negotiate the state's arcane licensing process to open the adjacent wine store  they had planned for the corner of Houston and Chrystie Streets, so rather than let the space go to waste, this Friday they will be unveiling the Whole Foods Market Beer Room. Workers are furiously unpacking cases of all manner of beer, ale and what have you to fill the shelves with cold, sudsy goodness in time for the weekend. They will be providing growlers, half gallon glass containers "used for toting a rich delicious brew to and fro" so you can bring home whatever is on tap, and classes and tastings will be offered so you can learn exactly how to match the correct beer to your meal.
No, we're not kidding. You thought it was going to be just a bunch of racks of beer?
We are betting that this will increase foot traffic dramatically for the store, at least for a few years until full gentrification sets in on the Bowery and the place will be packed all the time.
Whole Foods Market Bowery 95 East Houston Street, Lower East Side

Employee of the Week: Elizabeth Doyle at Doyle & Doyle

At this point, we should really just call it "Employee of the Month", and as we have seen before, Elizabeth Doyle current star of New York Magazine's Ask A Shop Clerk column, is clearly boss, not clerk.
Having established that, this week's edition is a little on the dry and service-ey side. Wasn't the point of asking the clerk to get some inside story, or even a little dirt? Elizabeth Doyle is obviously (and perfectly understandably) interested in promoting Doyle & Doyle, her Orchard Street store, and proceeds to dispense antique jewelry shopping advice, and little else.
Useful, yes, but not particularly colorful.
Ask A Shop Clerk has become the neglected stepchild of the Strategist section at the back of the book. We even forgot to check to see of it was running at all this week. Here's hoping interviewer Denise Penny finds a way to liven things up in the future, or maybe they should just let the column die already.
Nice picture, though.
Ask A Shop Clerk: Elizabeth Doyle of Doyle & Doyle (NYMag)
Doyle & Doyle 189 Orchard Street, Lower East Side

Employee Of The Week: Sam Buffa at Freemans Sporting Club

It's really feeling more like Employee of the Month isn't it? For whatever reason, New York Magazine can't seem to find that many shop clerks worth interviewing, or maybe they have just gotten bored with the concept. We haven't, but this week they have found Sam Buffa who sounds more like management than a clerk at Freemans Sporting Club, that little men's store by Freemans Alley that is either a brilliant imagination of a northeastern hunting lodge or ridiculously art-directed-to-death in a style we have come to know as "Authentically Fake" pioneered by the granddaddy of ye-olde-store-as-theatre, Ralph Lauren. We have learned from Ginger Hargett at Alessi that these interviews are only as good as the questions that get asked, so it's not surprising that Denise Penny has focused mostly on the store's décor and backroom barbershop as they are still its most striking features. No mention is made of its fabled basement archery range. Almost by accident, it seems, she manages to get a telling answer  regarding the store's philosophy:

NYMag: Why “Sporting Club”? Is there something to join?
Sam Buffa: We’re not exclusionary—there’s no membership or initiation. It’s pretty much a group of my friends. We all work in art and fashion. We go camping, fishing, on motorcycle rides. It’s nice to know how to start a fire, how to shoot a gun. It feels good to be a man sometimes

Ick. OK, so we're not much for camping, but, really, equating riflery with "feeling like a man" kind of makes us laugh and cringe at the same time. This is the state of modern hipsterdom? It's so blatantly symbolic that we just hope he's kidding. And yet he looks so serious in that picture.

Ask A Shop Clerk: Sam Buffa (NYMag)
Freemans Sporting Club, 8 Rivington St., near Bowery, Lower East Side
Previously: Horacio Goes Shopping: Luddite's Delight on the L.E.S.

The Bowery Whole Foods Free Sample Report

So we found ourselves at the Bowery Whole Foods again yesterday because we needed, like, tomatoes or something, and we can report that we had no fewer than eleven different things to sample, which is to be expected at a fancy, newly opened market. Here's what we were offered:

Black bean dip

Golden tofu

Cocoa rice krispy treats

Four flavors of sherbet

Cheddar cheese

Navel oranges

Three different types of pesto

Three different kinds of olive oil

Black Forest bacon

Butterscotch walnuts

What can we say? We went in feeling peckish and came out stuffed, and they weren't even giving out french fries. We thought this would be a good time to remind our gentle, and undoubtedly well-mannered readers about free sample protocol.

Take only one sample, like the little sign always says. You can always come back again and pretend you are a different person who hasn't had one yet.
Don't wait at the table waiting for them to put out more. You will look like a hog.
Try to avoid waiting in a crowd to get your sample. Again, hoglike appearance, and you are likely  to be clogging the aisle.
Take your sample and step aside. Don't sit and chat at with the sample-giver, blocking the table. There are probably people waiting behind you. they are probably us, and we are probably getting pissed.

Would You Like Fries With That?

We thought we might just ignore the Bowery Whole Foods because, well, what more could we add, and it's already the fourth one in the city with more to come. Can we be expected to report on every new Gap that opens? Then we went in, and it seems like they just keep getting better and better. We have heard much about the high-tech Cheese Cave, and the upstairs complex of cafés beats the cramped dining area at Columbus Circle while improving on the annoying bi-level arrangement at Union Square, but there's really only one thing that made our hearts leap.
French Fries.
They have a hot, fresh hand cut pommes frites stand right in the store, and somehow manage to run it without making half the store smell like a greasy spoon. Naturally, There are a full complement of dipping sauces and exotic salts, and they do cost a bit more than the ones at McDonald's, but yum.
Of course, you have to eat them right away, most likely in the upstairs cafe or walking across Houston Street, but since the store is newly opened, you can usually count on an extra abundance of samples throughout the place at least for a few more weeks.
Including fries.
Whole Foods Market 95 East Houston Street, Lower East Side

Hamptons Hits the Bowery: Blue & Cream Coming to Chrystie Place

The store that brought Lower East Side style to The Hamptons will be coming home. East Hampton's Blue & Cream will be joining the celebrated new Whole Foods in the second phase of the Chrystie Place complex on the Bowery. It won't be opening until September. The store, run by nightlife promoter Jeff Goldstein, has been carrying indie designers from the L.E.S. as well as Los Angeles since its inception, so with labels like Alife, DQM, and aNYthing for men and Charlotte Ronson and Mara Hoffman for women, they should fit right in. Inevitably, hardcore Lower East Siders will complain that they are carpetbagging interlopers, as they are opting for a spanking new luxury space instead of the ground floor of a crumbling tenement, but what can you do? Some people will never be happy. We will be looking forward to covering the opening this fall. Do you think The Misshapes are booked already?
Blue & Cream Takes the Jitney Downtown (WWD) via Racked.