STOP 1
(Click on the icons to see enlargements.)
A tour properly begins on Mott, in the block below Houston, where the "new" neighborhood began to crop up three years ago. The first trendy spot, other than a Francophile coffee place called Café Gitane, was the women's shoe store Sigerson Morrison. The two partners, Kari Sigerson and Miranda Morrison, converted what was a shabby bodega into one of the most striking small shops in the city. Though I defer to no one in my lack of interest in women's footwear, this is a store that can be appreciated by someone who would never buy anything there. A giant plate glass window affords a street level view into a beautiful display room shaped like a standing rectangle. Inside are ebony-colored square shelves, with a library ladder for access to the upper ones. In the center of the room is a brightly colored ottoman for trying on shoes, with a giant Noguchi paper fixture hanging directly over it. The place has a minimalist aesthetic, which happens to have been the look chosen for the giant Calvin Klein boutique on Madison Avenue. In fact, Calvin recently sidled up to the store in his limo and hopped out for another peek at the shelves.
The Calvin Klein aesthetic says: "I am a Zen Buddhist monk whose only furniture is a beautifully polished rock. I have a large trust fund. I have never smiled." The Sigerson Morrison look, by contrast, is both clean-modern and whimsical. The shoes, which a colleague of my wife's describes as "demure, ladylike, and sexy" with heels that are high but not too high, have aqua linings, which gives them a slightly kitschy '50s appearance--but only when viewed off the foot. Between the shelves of shoes in the Sigerson Morrison store is a miniature design shrine with small objects for sale: plastic lighters, combs, notebooks, and Italian toothpaste. It makes the point that good design is all around but that you have to pay attention to notice it. I bought a kind of '70s revival shoehorn in bright orange for $2.
Also worth a peek is Sigerson Morrison's wholesale showroom on Mott just across Prince, which looks like a '50s modern tableau. On the day I went by, it was closed, but through the glass you could see a table designed by Eero Saarinen, with a set of chairs designed by Charles Eames. These midcentury modern designers are the chief role models around the neighborhood, not just because of the simple look of their furniture, which is "in," but also because of their approach, which was to make good design for the multitudes. In this picture, the table is covered in photographs, tear sheets, and a brown paper lunch bag--as if the designers had collapsed in exhaustion late the night before and gone home without cleaning up.
STOP 2
Next to the Sigerson Morrison showroom, at 225 Mott, is Zero. This wonderful store just opened. Maria Conejo, the Chilean-British woman who runs it, has designed the long loft space brilliantly, and on the cheap. Two-thirds of the way back is an opaque Plexiglas wall, behind which is her workshop. The retail area of her store combines high and low design elements. Architects built a large desk-table, but Conejo has furnished it with a plastic wastebasket and chair from IKEA. The changing room is a curtain of the type you'd see in a doctor's office. For decoration, there are two giant photographs of flowers taken by Conejo's husband, fashion photographer Mark Borthwick. His books and a couple of CDs, the covers of which he designed, are on sale alongside his wife's clothes.
Zero's clothes are highly inventive--avant-garde without being absurd. They are spartan and somewhat androgynous looking, often crafted out of a single piece of fabric cut in a geometric shape. Conejo has devised what she calls the "Zero Top," a kind of seamless T-shirt made out of a single piece of fabric with a hole in the middle. There is also a "Zero Dress," and a similarly simple "Sari Dress," which sells for a quite reasonable $150. I also loved her "Disco Skirt," a mini made out of something like foam rubber.
STOP 3
Just down from Zero is Wang (minimalist names seem to be the trend). Two sisters, Jennifer and Sally Wang, run this place and have given it a distinctive look with a few simple touches. One is a high, wheeled stainless steel table, which serves as the desk, that they got from a restaurant supply store on the Bowery. Jennifer Wang (she's the one standing in the window in the photograph) describes her clothes as practical--"nothing too sheer or high-maintenance." They have a kind of sensible schoolgirl look, with a little bit of Maoist-uniform influence. Wang makes straight, pleated skirts and other stuff that you could wear with anything. The clothes have been knocked off by J. Crew and Urban Outfitters (UO sells a hook-and-eye-closure, mandarin-collar top remarkably similar to a more expensive Wang version).
STOP 4
Around the corner on Prince is Hotel of the Rising Star, run by Donald Hearn and Scott Kruger, two recent graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design. Hearn and Kruger practice a little architecture on the side and have an art gallery in the meatpacking district. The store itself is a combination of architecture salon and boutique. On one side are books about art and architecture. On the other are their clothes--only about 50 items on display.
Their witty menswear, sold under the label "Organization for Returning Fashion Interest," is one part Royal Navy surplus, one part skateboard-punk, and one part Joseph Beuys--the German artist famous for his felt suit. Current items include sailor pants made of gray felt and an English-type waxed raincoat--in a hooded skateboard cut. At $395, this is a pricey item--but still cheaper than what one finds at uptown department stores. The designers clearly enjoy making the packaging as much as they do the clothes. One innovation of theirs is to sell T-shirts in clear plastic bags. Their advertising stickers are as witty as their designs.
Hearn (on the right in the picture) walks that fine line between being incredibly nerdy and very cool. When I dropped in, he was wearing the costume you see in the picture: polygonal glasses, T-shirt, baggy pants that appeared to be made out of a washed cardboard packing material, and what looked like Nike Air carpet slippers. A customer with a white cockatoo on his shoulder walked in while we were talking. It was a bloated and acned and not at all healthy-looking Leonardo DiCaprio.
STOP 5
On Elizabeth, around the corner from the Hotel of the Rising Star, is Lucien Pellat-Finet. This store is interesting because it is not in keeping with the local ethos and reflects the creeping SoHoization of the neighborhood. It sells $800 cashmere sweaters made in Scotland. The store has a hoity-toity upper Madison Avenue feeling--you have to get buzzed in and are observed closely by a clerk who does not care to chat. And although the space is elegant, it is too lavish and generic for the neighborhood--the taste of the person who designed the clothes is not reflected in the store.
STOP 6
Directly across, on the west side of Elizabeth, is a tiny shop called WearMart, in which no more than two people can fit at a time. You have to look for a moment before realizing that the shabby look of the place is entirely intentional. Martin Keehn, the proprietor, says he wanted it to evoke a cross between a principal's office and the men's department at Sears. Pegboard walls, a Formica counter, and ice-cube tray fluorescent lighting make the shop look like a time capsule vault sealed in 1974. The whole place has a delightfully creepy, teen-runaway aesthetic. It's dry irony rather than high camp--a fashion look for people who want to appear as if they shop at the Salvation Army while spending slightly more for unworn garments. "I glorify the lowest common denominator," Keehn says. "I want to be the Ralph Lauren of chip clips and corn-cob holders."
Keehn's spring collection was "hospital," which he says was inspired by the rich kids at his Seattle high school who liked to wear stolen surgical scrubs. It included V-neck jerseys and drawstring pants. His fall concept is "gym teacher"--polyester pants with elastic waistbands. Look for them soon at the Gap.
