faust

Personally i can't believe the prices of NYC reality.. how can people continue to pay so much for so little - Especially if you have to live so far away too!

But what about other cities? Do you think people will move out of NYC to different places. Any other cities that are going to be Hotspots? What about Atlanta - a few friends keep telling me its getting big, and there was the NY TImes article about parts of ATL being the next SOHO of the 80's. anybody believe that? It seems NYC is soooo saturated.

(my spellin gis bad sometimes (no one like newyork))

There was a big article in New York Times a few months ago about how young people are moving to Philly, cause it's basically 1.5hr away, and is very cheap compared to NYC. I kinda like Philly, I get away for a day or a weekend once in a while. If it wasn't such a redneck Republican stronghold for the most part, I might consider moving there one day.

I'm on the look for mens accessories, such as neckties, cufflinks, good looking bags, scarfs, etc.

Anyone out there with some good advice as to where I find the best and most good looking?

On the web, in the shelfs or wherever.

Best,

Bruce

[edit]

Actuall, if you know any stores in London that'd be even better since I'll be there in about three weeks.

Where are you ordinary located, what's your style, what's your budget? It's really hard to recommend something based on so little info.

Faust, pics of the jacket pleeaase!

Ok, here are some pics. Sorry for the first crappy one, I couldn't use a flash.

Anyone with access to DSM know anything about the Sacai Gem line they carry(ied)? It was a colab between Kawakubo and the brand Sacai. The 2 sweaters they had featured on the site a little while back looked incredible, anyone seen em in real life? If so, how ridiculously expensive were (are) they?

Sacai in general is very expensive ($600 and up for sweaters, I'd imagine even more in London). The fabrics are out of this world, though. It's like wearing clouds...

to work on my condition

Be prepared to seel all your clothes, because that will make your back enormous :-)

faust, i figure you're the guy to ask: is atelier the best place to pick up ccp and carpe diem in new york? i'm heading there in a few weeks and have a day to myself so i figured i'd pick up the items i've really been coveting.

also, the last thing i purchased was a new pair of sugar cane 47s.

Well, it's pretty much the only place to pick it up. I have to warn you though - both of their CDiem and Poell collections are wiped clean. I don't know where people get the dough, but it's very slim pickin's right now. Hopefully they'll get some stuff by the time you get there - fall stuff is coming in now. You can see a few pieces of CDiem in IF boutique (mostly women's stuff, but it's pretty unisex), as well as their footwear. Barneys also has the boots. I think that's about it... Let us know if you buy anything, would love to drool :-)

Hmmm, I was trying to figure out what that was also.....Could it be an IPOD case????

Let us know Coldrice!

Faust, pics of the jacket pleeaase!

I'll try as soon as I can.

Is collette just a glorified sneaker shop?

What brands do they carry there?

No, it's a glorified gift shop. :-)

They do have some interesting clothes, but they buy in very tiny quantities. They carry Junya Watanabe, Dries van Noten, CDG, Cloak, etc... Brands changes quickly though, because they are trend oriented.

Was this in the saturday or the sunday edition?

Magazine comes out on Sunday, but you can read on the web a day before.

my opinion is no.

L'Eclaireur > Colette

BTW, almost nobody goes to Colette to buy clothes - they make more money in books, cds, magz, accessories, etc.

sorry, my bad

next sell suits from around £100 to £200 and are ok quality. its high street basically but the top end of high street

Hmm, to be honest, I doubt you'll find anything even half-decent at this price range in New York. London has a much older and deeper tradition of suit-making - there, even crappy suits are still decent. You can go to places like Banana Republic and JCrew in New York, just don't get your hopes up. I think your best bet is Barneys warehous sale which should be in late August or early September - there you'll have a pretty large selection of good suits heavily discounted.

definitely a good article, doesn't really cast bobby and aron in the most flattering of lights, does it? the whole super-self-aware thing is going to collapse "the movement" faster than anything. all it takes is a few more boost mobiles.

i would have liked it to be even more aggressive: beyond selling your lifestyle, and "doing business," what streetwear is really about, for those who are creating it, is maintaining your spot, right? it's a validation of your cool and your position in the endless blog-website-party-blog-party-website circlejerk. there was a very informed quote on superfuture a while back explaining how all the top "cool guys" in new york were essentially the sons and daughters of the old new york power elite. i believe his quote was "it's the same cocktail party with a different setting, and you're not invited."

i'd write more but it's 2pm, i'm late for the line-up in front of the shop. ta!

EXACTLY. Thanks for saving me trouble venting. This whole scene is just a bunch of bullshit... but you can buy the tshirt!!!

ColdRice, I don't know what that thing in a picture is, but it's beautiful.

I bought another LMaltieri jacket.

Men's

1. Ann Demeulemeester

2. Carpe Diem/LMaltieri

3. Raf Simons

4. Hussein Chalayan

5. Cloak

6. Rick Owens

7. Dries van Noten

8. Dirk Schonberger

9. Martin Margiela

10. Junya Watanabe

Women's

1. Ann Demeulemeester

2. Junya Watanabe

3. Hussein Chalayan

4. Alexander McQueen

5. Jurgi Persoons (now defunct)

6. Bruno Pieteres

7. Comme des Garcons

8. Dries van Noten

9. Ann Valerie Hash

10. Martin Margiela

we have a shop called 'next' over here in the uk so i was wondering what would the equvilent be over in nyc?

i have a tall thin shape so have to find suits which dont come as a set

thanks in advance

too little info. you can either explain the concept behind "next" or give us your preferences and price range, or both.

Anyone know of any stores in Las Vegas that would sell Helmut Lang?

Helmut Lang went out of business a year ago.

Faust surely you aren't surprised by my post, considering I put up the Cloak F/W 07 thread on TFS Thanks for the heads up on the schedule, for some reason I had hoped that it would be released a few weeks early, similar to the Paris shows. If I'm not mistaken, isn't NYC fashion week in early August? If it's early september I'll be extremely pissed.

It's Sep. 8 to 15, I believe.

/\ hahaha. wait a week or two, when the schedule comes out. by the way, i had a chance to cover the entire NYC fashion week, but I had to pass up because I'll be in London. Kinda bummed though....

xcoldricex: How is the fit on Margiela button down shirts? I've tried on his line 10 blazers many times, and they all seemed very full cut.

his fits vary from very slim to regular fits

nice haul, cold rice, especially the CDiem footwear.

Mens Non-no is amazing. Too bad I can't read any of it. However, like djrajio says, the fashion snaps section (basically a "what are you wearing" thread in magazine form..) is fantastic.

I like Huge as well.

Since there aren't any worthwhile US fashion mags, I read the Economist, Maclean's (basically Time Magazine for Canada), and the New York Times Magazine whenever I get a chance to read it.

I subscibe to the Economis too. I don't really like it as much as I did at first - I am getting tired of their unapologetic capitalist stance in their business/finance section. I'd expect it to be more humane, being a European magazine and all. But, oh, wait... Britain is not really Europe, it's just another American colony...

Also, their Russophobia is pretty hilarious. I can understand them - I'm sure it's hard to see wealthy Russians buy up your prime real-estate and your football teams, and make London their playground, especially when the Brits are supposed to be such sophisticated gentlemen and Russian are supposed to be such philistines (lol at stereotypes).

I was reading this NY Times article, and I felt kind of sad about consumerism overtaking the last bastions of cool. What do you guys think about the whole skull overload lately with Paris Hiltons and teeny boppers rockin' it without any underlying theme?

From NY times.

The Heyday of the Dead

By DAVID COLMAN

YES, it’s July. The sun’s shining. People are heading to the beach or just out, to catch some UV, drink some Mountain Dew and indulge in some good clean summer fun.

But what is that little black cloud drifting across the sun? Will it ruin our picnic, like ants or a motorcycle gang? Heaven protect us ... a skull? Not one, but a sea of them! Ah, but ere it comes near, it is clear: it will barely cast a pall.

If it was not clear a year or two ago, when the skull motif cropped up on battered Herman-Melville-meets-Edgar-Allan-Poe T-shirts made by Rogues Gallery, on costly cashmere sweaters by Lucien Pellat-Finet, on the perforated uppers of the wingtips made by the men’s wear line Barker Black, it is now. What only recently seemed clever and stylish — I’m wearing a skull! I’m baaaaad! — has shifted into overdrive, if not overkill.

Beyond the sea of skull wear — belts, T-shirts, ties — there are umbrellas, sneakers, swimsuits, packing tape, party lights, even a skull-branded line of hand tools. One company has made a skull toilet brush and caddy (with a molded-plastic femur bone for a handle). This summer Damien Hirst announced that he will make a life-size skull, cast in platinum and adorned with 8,000 diamonds.

If it seems harmless, well, there you have it. With the full force of the American consumer marketing establishment behind it, the skull has lost virtually all of its fearsome outsider meaning. It has become the Happy Face of the 2000’s. When the mid-1980’s proto-Goth group the Ministry sang “Every Day Is Halloween,†this was not quite what they had in mind.

“This is such a huge gripe of mine,†said Voltaire, a musician in New York and the author of “What is Goth?†(Weiser Books, 2004), a kind of “Preppy Handbook†for the living dead. “Throughout hundreds of years of history, what the skull has communicated is, ‘I am dangerous.’ That’s where the irony is. You can buy dangerous for $11.99 at Kmart.â€

For years Voltaire was the happy owner of several skull-motif sweaters hand-knit by an eccentric Englishwoman. He recounted that a woman stopped him the other day on an East Village street to admire the one he was wearing. “She said: ‘I love your sweater. Is it Ralph Lauren?’ Then I found out that Ralph Lauren has a whole store that sells skull stuff.â€

Well, not for long he doesn’t. At Rugby, the chain of collegiate-style stores Mr. Lauren rolled out only last year, the shirts are embroidered not with a polo player but a skull. However, the logo is already being scaled back (though not dropped entirely), a spokesman said.

“It’s a pity it’s so commercial now,†Mr. Pellat-Finet said. For more than five years, he has splashed oversize skull graphics — sporting, say, Mickey Mouse ears — on his sweaters. “Maybe Wal-Mart will replace their smiley-face with a tête de mort,†he added, using the French term for skull. “It’s lost its meaning.â€

Well, it still has one meaning for Mr. Pellat-Finet, whose latest skull sweaters are embellished with Afros and top hats, among other images. Asked if he will stop using the motif, he responded with a chuckle: “No, no, no. It’s my best seller!â€

Other designers appear to have similarly mixed feelings: on one hand, they are confronted with skull saturation; on the other, skulls are ringing the dinner bell louder than ever. Alexander McQueen’s fall men’s wear show did not play up skull imagery on the runway — surely the critics would be bored — but there are plenty back in the showroom, on sports coats, polo shirts and trousers. His $210 skull-print silk scarf is one of the best-selling items on the men’s designer floor at Barneys New York.

“We’ve sold 400 since May,†said Timothy Elliott, a Barneys spokesman. “We sell them as fast as they come in.â€

Many people point to the “Pirates of the Caribbean†franchise as fuel for skullmania. But the skull’s ascent to the logo throne has more to it and behind it than a Disney marketing campaign. Reminiscent of the vogue for angels a decade or more ago — remember how the little winged creatures were everywhere? — the skull neatly encapsulates a cultural moment in terms both precise and vague.

It is also the product of potent economic forces. The proliferation of skulls has paralleled the rise of the Hot Topic clothing chain. Begun 17 years ago in Southern California, Hot Topic is a 680-stores-in-50-states phenomenon based on the simple idea of selling music-related clothing and accessories — punk studded wristbands, heavy-metal T-shirts and lately, lots and lots of skulls — to suburban teenagers who would otherwise have to visit an urban clothing boutique for such goodies.

“Have we brought skulls to the mall?†said Cindy Levitt, the vice president for marketing at Hot Topic. “Absolutely. But skulls are a rock icon. We’ve always had them. We see this as more of a fashion trend.â€

Still, Ms. Levitt agreed that the skull is not what it used to be. “It’s no longer threatening,†she said. “Anyone will wear a skull now.â€

The inventory at Hot Topic, which caters to music fans of all stripes, points up another facet of the skull’s allure, its vagueness. Cherished as an icon by several rock genres, it communicates many potential meanings without specifying any single one: the skull as style hedge.

“The skull is all-purpose,†said Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker. “It simultaneously refers to horror movies, to the Misfits and, by extension, all punk rock, and to a generalized culture of blackness and spookiness and the larger, mall-Goth culture.†So, he said, “if you’re really at heart a Goth, but you have friends who are into metal and punk, you can rock the skulls and be friends with all of them.â€

Or in fashionspeak: skulls — fun, flexible, easy, breezy!

It is a different way of thinking of one of history’s most formidable images, seen in thousands of years of art and a symbol integral to Mexican culture. Robert Rosenblum, a professor of fine arts at New York University, explained that the skull is central to the vanitas, a genre of still-life painting in which temporal pleasures are juxtaposed with a skull. “The vanitas includes the skull as a reminder that death is everywhere,†he said, “as a cutting edge to too much contentment with the here and now.â€

Perhaps the Manhattan hostess who bought a $4,140 set of 12 sterling-silver skull place-card holders by the jeweler Douglas Little wanted to convey that message to her guests. (Supercute touch: the place cards are clenched between the hinged jaws.) Or maybe not; she declined to be interviewed.

The skull as memento mori is important to Philip Crangi, a fashionable jeweler in Manhattan known for a pared-down modernized take on 19th-century morbidity. “I use it in a Victorian or Latin sense,†he said, “where it meant that life is short and death is the great equalizer, so stop your whining and get on with it.â€

In his view skulls are not less threatening because a chic jeweler is casting them in precious metal but because, in an age when slasher films are top grossers, death itself has become less threatening. “In the 19th century, when people died, they were laid out in the living room,†he said. “I think we’ve lost that connection to death.â€

For others, the skull is about youth, not death, losing its sting. Banks Violette, an artist whose fascination with heavy metal imagery won him a show at the Whitney Museum last summer, is never happy to see cherished symbols of teen angst treated blithely.

“It’s always an inward flinch,†he said. “People create this little world where they try to negotiate their own sense of alienation, then it gets pulled apart.†He added that because such symbols are associated with youth culture, they are often viewed as superficial and treated cynically by companies that market to young people.

Yet as consumers young and old tire of being marketed to, the skull appears to offer a kind of antidote: the ultimate unbrand, one that belongs to no one. Curiously, then, what began as an outlaw anti-logo may as well be viewed as the death rattle of an underground aesthetic.

“The skull was one of the last frontiers,†said Rick Owens, the designer known for his glamorized Goth style. “There’s no way to make yourself edgy anymore.â€

Even so, he is planning on selling skulls — real ones — in “natural and black†in his new Paris boutique. “Skulls are kind of timeless,†he said, deadpan as it gets.

Ah, well. Eat, drink and be trendy. Tomorrow we die.

where is these two mags from?

i am pretty interested

Trust me, you are not interested. Moreover, Cargo has been fased out, because apparently nobody gave a shit, and rightfully so.

The only one I look at is i-D. Everything else is crap. Surface magazine will have a good issue once in a while. I keep hearing about the mens Nonno, but I've never seen it myself.

The McQ menswear looks lovely (hmm love the blue and black checked coat-gorgeous!) if expensive for a 'diffusion line' but where are they stocking it in London? Went to the McQueen store and they said only Selfridges is stocking McQ and from what I can see on the Selfridges website, they are only having the womenswear. Surely not! Please help!

Weird, I'd imagine everyone and their mother would stock a diffusion line by the best British designer (funny, went to the FashionSpot and saw your post there too). Why not call up some dept stores - Browns, Liberty, Harvey Nicks?

Thanks for the advice guys. Especially faust, that avsforum was just the thing I was looking for but didn't know it.

Cheers, and good luck! Wife promised to buy one with her first big-ass lawyer paycheck - I'm keeping my fingers crossed :-)