saturday’s new york shopping tour & its unexpected compliments

in a big effort to blog more and succumb to the wishes of my readers (heh heh. go vote if you haven’t already!), i thought i’d share how i spent my saturday.

3 of my friends and i took a walking/shopping tour of downtown new york. it was really quite amazing and we promised to do it once a month. (although once we start getting busy, that probably ain’t gonna happen!)

i woke up late and threw on the first thing i saw in my closet!

zamiang! tshirt by undercover for hysteric mini
skirt by comme des garcons (bought on ebay for $50! can you believe it?!)
pink polka dot socks
green beary flats by mercibeaucoup;
ginormous voodoo necklace by RÊVASSEUR (now available for sale!)

as fashion designers, a shopping report is always important. any designer always needs to be aware of their market, their competitors, and their target customer. who is your customer? who is going to be buying your clothes? what does that person do? where does he or she shop/live/hang out? without this knowledge, one cannot be completely successful.

we do this often, especially with large projects. yesterday, we decided to do a little walking tour and cover some of our favourite stores that would be in our competitive price range and target audience. it was an amazing day. hot! (we kept talking about armpit sweat stains hahaha) but amazing nonetheless.

we started with art supply shopping in chinatown, then walked over to the rick owens store. i love rick, i do. but i need to lose about 20 kilos and gain a feet in height to look good in those clothes. still, i want some in my wardrobe!! from there we went to number (n)ine.

oh number (n)ine, number (n)ine… how i love you so. designer takahiro miyashita must be infatuated with kurt cobain because kurt has been his inspiration for his collections since forever. and hello, i bet johnny depp’s closet is filled with number (n)ine items. or at least i imagine it to be.

the thing i love about number (n)ine is this; not only are the clothes just beautifully made, they have this sort of “rich” feel with a touch of bad-boy punk. i can’t explain it well, but it is gorgeous. what puts it above the rest, for me, is how miyashita has created an entire shopping experience for his customers.

i’m sick of all these stores that do nothing to their interiors. why aren’t they creating an entire shopping experience for the consumers to bask in? i’m sick of the white walls, the stark and bare look. don’t give me this minimalistic bullshit. there are brands that suit the minimalistic look, and brands who pretend they do. take a look at the number (n)ine store… this is how it should be done!

can i hear a hell-yeah?

this was the first time i had visited the new york store. although i’d been to the tokyo store several times, it is so hidden and secretive, i would get a little lost finding it each time. but each time i did, it was like an entrance into a beautiful wonderland. this is what having a store means to me. the clothing was beautiful, no doubt. my friends who had never heard of number (n)ine were in awe. i, for one, was running like a headless chicken all over the place, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at everything. i touched everything. i looked at all the clothing inside out. they were a work of art.

go asap to the number (n)ine store located at 431 washington street. for some reason, the brand has decided to close its doors at the end of the year. it is a sad time in fashion, and unfortunately, bad things happen to some of the best people.

from number (n)ine, we walked along the west side toward the meatpacking district.

from tribeca, we walked all the way toward the meatpacking district where we popped into all sorts of stores. we spent some time at the maison martin margiela store, where we admired the mastery behind the ideas and garment construction. one of the guys working at the femme store said he wanted my voodoo necklace. then we went next door to margiela homme, where the cute sales assistant there walked by me, walked back, and said, “you have amazing style by the way.”

THANK YOU, CUTE BOY! BY THE WAY WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER AND ARE YOU STRAIGHT? haha.

at alexander mcqueen, i saw the most gorgeous coat of the season. and then i did the most terrible thing. i tried it on.

then i refused to take it off. it was beautiful. practically everyone in the store turned around and stared at the coat. it was beautiful. did i say that already? it was a mossy green coat with huge sleeves and a trapeze shaped bodice. the front did a sort of drape, and it was cut with some chiffon panels in the middle that fluttered really pretty. i wanted to bolt with it. my friend, hee, was like, “gilda, it was made for you.”

i know already! it was made for me and it was made to be sold at $5000 bucks! i need to sell a liver for that!

we went next door to jeffrey after that. they were celebrating their 10th year anniversary, and designers had designed clothing for dolls that were on display in the store. can you guess which designer did what? some are pretty obvious! some… i had no idea who they were. haha!

a sales woman at jeffrey asked if i was a designer, while i was ogling over some undercover dresses. then as we were leaving the store, this guy ran over and said, “excuse me miss! i just had to come over. can i touch your necklace? it’s amazing. where did you get it?”

i don’t know if any of you are designers, but you must have created something with your own hands before. it is the most satisfying experience to hear people compliment something that you have made. it really is! it’s way more satisfying than the smoothest dark chocolate on earth.

i can’t lie – i was really quite happy.

from jeffrey, we walked to see the comme des garcons black store, where our friend who’s working there, emi, said we had to go over to the main comme des garcons store, which was obviously on our menu of must-visit stores.

i nearly died; the junya collection was breathtaking, and i was completely smitten with this amazing avant garde comme des garcons vest and jacket. it was $370 and $455 respectively. again, i wish i could put them on and bolt from the store at lightning speed. i tried them on and felt them up. i was like a horny teenage boy looking at the cutest little girl. then i had to put them away. dammit. damn you, rei. why are you so clever?

we went to the balenciaga store nearby then, and elahe tried on a skirt in a nude-peachy pink colour. it had a few zips around the skirt that would open and cause the skirt to drape in certain ways. wow. love.

while she tried that on, i looked at the balenciaga bags and wondered when i can finally buy one. i’m not a bag person. i don’t spend much money on my bags, and i never really do have nice bags to carry to evening events. my most expensive bag is about $200. i’d rather be spending my money on food and clothes, than bags. is that weird?

at balenciaga, a customer there stopped me while i was looking through the racks, and told me he loved my necklace too. never mind the dude at jeffrey’s, this was a guy who shops at balenciaga, repeat, balenciaga, telling me he loved my necklace? wow. i was ready to lift my hands to the sky (or at that moment, at the balenciaga ceiling), and shout “hallelujah!”

it was about 4:30pm by then, and we were drained and tired. we’d been walking nonstop since 11am. crazy huh? my feet were killing me and thank god i wasn’t in heels. we started walking over to cafeteria in chelsea to finally have some food, and along the way we saw this funniest dog. he was walking alone, in the middle of the street, with the s-l-o-w-e-s-t strut ever!! his movements were so slow, i had to whip out my camera to take a picture.

of course, elahe decided to pose together.

at 5pm in the late afternoon, we finally got our food. if you’ve never been to cafeteria before, you just need to. i had their mussles and a glass of lychee bellini. oh yeah, this is what new yorkers are supposed to be doing on weekends. having a chill time at a chill place, not cooped up in their apartments or work studios working and sewing some garment, like we usually are. it was a little sad that we hardly get to enjoy ourselves like this.

our server at cafeteria couldn’t get over my necklace either, except she thought it was a bag. the day was just pretty funny. it was the third time i had worn my voodoo necklace out. the first time was to the latex ball with patricia field and the house of field, the 2nd time, i’d worn it with a purple tshirt, with a turquoise tutu skirt and harlequin tights. granted, the 2nd time i was one colourful little walking circus.

it had gotten a few compliments then, but the compliments i received yesterday was out of this world.

both hee and elahe were like, you need to put that necklace up for sale asap. it was mad, the number of compliments that came flying my way. i was quite shocked and was not expecting it. elahe counted 10 people. whoah. but the thing is, will people actually wear it if they could buy it? i don’t know. i guess, we’ll see!! you tell me! would you put it on?

Tagged as: art, design, food, inspiration, new york, style, today's get-up, weekend lover