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Colette... your thoughts


jeepster

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For those of us who have been to Colette in Paris, what did you (not in the collective sense) think of it?

me, i thought it was sorta pretentious, but all fashion is. it was a cool space, and the setup was really nice, but it didn't seem to accomodate the casual shopper (meanign one who didn't plan on buying anything). i stayed in a hotel up the street on Rue St. Honore, and would pass it every morning while i was in paris last week, and finally went in. it just seems really intimidating, and none of the clothes save for the obvious street wear, seem exactly "wearable", but thats just my opinion (im a jeans/button down kinda guy)

your thoughts?

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i know what you mean on the prententious bit. but it is cool to have odd, unusual pieces not offered from a particular designer usually, say for eg. a aromatherapy leather pouch from bottega venetta placed next to a similar item from dior homme.

that plus having lots of fashion victims there, myself included, makes seeing beautiful (or not so) people possible.

but paris is a unique city by itself, colette doesnt make it any better nor worse and although i dont make it a point to go there, i usually pop in since i like rue saint honore and hotel costes (another fashion victim's hangout) :)

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this is what I said before:

colette is as overrated as it gets. I had heard so but I still wanted to check it out. what pisses me off most in addition to the 50 tourists packed there is that they're supposedly the dealer for a hundred brands but in fact they have about 20 pieces of clothing on their racks if you dont count the lame t-shirt racks. so in reality they dont have a majority of brands they "carry" and out of the brands they do have, the selection is extremely limited. so what they had was very random pieces from jill sander, 2 sweaters from neighborhood and a couple of visvim models in a single color. for example no raf simmons which I was hoping to find, they're one of the few dealers in paris.

needless to say, I still stop by there when I'm in Paris :o

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My only experience of Colette was a few years ago, around the time things like Visvim and APC were getting popular, and I pretty much felt the same way as the above comment. They had barely any men's clothes, most was in this little enclosure at he back, with about 2-3 mannequins devoted to men's stuff. It was a real mish-mash, but mostly very of-the-moment streetwear t shirt brands mixed with the odd avant garde designer. I too didn't like the way it claims to carry loads of designers, but only actually has about 2 (seemingly randomnly) chosen items from each one. It's as though it just wants to be known as having carried it when it was cool - It's like retail namechecking, or something?

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nice to look at and see what's what, not so great for actual shopping, as others have said.

I could see people with a lot of money and not as much taste going there and blowing some cash... but the fashion cognoscenti (always wanted to use that word) will be shopping elsewhere.

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lowrey is right on with that. I felt the exact same way when I was there last year. The owner has really embodied being "JUST" ahead of the mainstream fashion stores, so that they can still be called "avant-garde" by magazine reviews like GQ that don't really know anything but are read by a much larger audience etc etc, when in reality they lag quite a bit behind.

L'eclaireur is years ahead, and way better in terms of their collections and their integrity to the designers. It seems like Colette will take a look around at all the serious stores, see what sold well, pick up a couple of those items the next year, and throw them up at inflated prices. There isn't any tangible theme to anything, it just seems like a mix and match of names you've heard of somewhere.

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Colette doesn't put everything the have in the store and update/change the whole salefloor every sunday/monday night. This is the reason that you won't find all the brands they carry.

but how much do they have in stock then? cause last time I was there I could think of many many brands they supposedly carry and not a see any items from those, are they just holding them all somewhere?

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That's the way they do it. Go there, go there again next week completely different stock. This to keep people coming back, I'm not sure if this also applies for the streetwear part, but the rest of the store it does. They dress the mannequins and

have those little racks, but that's only a fraction of their actual selection.

Also stuff sells out really quickly there, as I'm under the impression that their clientelle generally doesn't care about money.

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It has many great clothes imo, but many of them are much too expensive (who would pay 50€ for a Ratatouille t-shirt, seriously?).

Still, they have really great stuff (Raf By Raf Simons jeans are amazing, and not so costly), and for Parisians, it's a geat way to have access to hip brands other than Dior or APC (but the store carries them too...).

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no, its quite large, three floors.

relatively speaking. the 3rd floor space is the biggest, the main floor is relatively comfortable in terms of spacing, but since im a big guy, i appreciate some generous walking space between the tables. i didnt go down into the cafe in the basement, so i can't comment on that, but its not that large in reality. the feng-sui of the whole place was a little off with the mannequins upstairs and the placement of the tables in the middle of the main room.

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i'm not mad at colette one bit. there are always beautiful french girls looking at art books, it's on a crowded, yet convenient enough block that you can stroll in on a whim and the key to any good shop...you're guaranteed to find something, be it a book, pen or pair of trousers, that you will want to buy.

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  • 3 months later...

when i went to Colette last january, i had imagined it to be the size of a department store.. and it wasn't.

i liked the books, house-wears, and grooming product lines they carried, and the store was set up in a clean and organized way, but i thought the clothing lacked that spark. if i want a marni t-shirt i can get it anywhere. i don't want one, though.

everything was also too expensive. i know rent is high for that retail space (assuming they rent), but still...

my cousin found a day-by-day calendar in the form of post-it notes. it was, i think 10 euro more at Colette than at Bon Marche (i feel like that store is a more fashionable and informed Saks, nevertheless- surprised at the overlap in inventory..)

the second time i went on that trip, it was extremely crowded with a group of sweatshirt-wearing tourists.. i was shocked, and appalled.. long story short, it's worse when it's crowded because there isn't much traffic flow space between shelves and displays.

i didn't try the water-bar in the basement.. what's the general consensus on that?

advice: if you haven't been, go and see Colette, but i wouldn't suggest getting your hopes up like i did.

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Being in Paris this summer for the month of July I went to Colette 3 or 4 times. I found the first floor to be a little jammed but nothing to overwhelming. I did eat at the bar once... had an medicore falafel for a billion euros. Definetly overpriced on clothing... but wouldn't NOT go there a few times if i''m in Paris. If just to handle some shit.

The mannequins area is sorta cool ... but the tall, male staff up there isn't the most accomodating..

*secret- i stashed a copy of the literary journal i'm part of in the small press section. wooo

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  • 4 weeks later...

i was stoked to go there as i had heard good things, and it was cool to check out. in the end though, there wasn't anything there that i wanted that i couldn't get when i was in nyc, sf, or la for a better price. i only had one opportunity to go there, so i wonder what i would have seen if i had the time to go back again later.

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i was there in late November last year.

i, like many others, expected there to be more stuff....

BUT, i am a sucker for design books and all the other useless stuff that they have on the ground floor....so naturally i really enjoyed my visit, and will most certainly return when i go back to Paris.

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