Need a Kick?
Sometimes adidas (845 N. Michigan Ave., 4th fl.; 312-867-1640) actually makes shoes for athletes. Whereas the adidas Originals store on Rush Street stocks the brand’s fashion and retro heritage shoes, the new Water Tower store is the first athletic-shoe shop for the brand in the Midwest, carrying sports gear and shoes for tennis, running, basketball, soccer, and golf. The real draw is…
The song "I Want Candy" was used on a handful of runways this season, most often in the 80s incarnation by the group Bow Wow Wow. I’m sure it’s popular because it’s upbeat and girly, but the fact that designers are repeatedly using a song released more than 20 years ago (and was used quite recently, and to memorable effect in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette) seems indicative of the biggest problem at the New York shows: a please-everyone mentality…
Tracing Jeaneology
The Lincoln Park shop DNA 2050 (2122 N. Halsted St.; 773-525-8004) stocks a mix of established and emerging brands for men and women in casual and dressy styles. Find pajama-soft tops from Sportmax Code, separates from Just Cavalli, dresses from Bread and Butter, among others. For women, we loved the William Rast pea coat ($409), a silk chiffon halter dress ($399) from Julie Haus, and a yellow cashmere sweater from Knitwit ($145). For men, there is a mix of preppy, work-appropriate attire such as…
Fashion week is strange. Months and months of work go into a show that happens once and lasts 15 minutes. (After Calvin Klein, I saw some PR girls dramatically collapsing into each other, saying, “It’s over, it’s really over.”). Seeing celebrities starts to feel quite natural, and the fashion people you see every day start to feel like family—albeit a strange sort of family that follows you around every day but rarely speaks to you…
Poor old Hamlet may not have been the picture of stability, but then again, neither was crime-fiction writer Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled hero Sam Spade. Put them together, and you’ve got one tongue-twister of a nod toward the dark and the stormy: Dashiell Hamlet, a new play cowritten by the 84-year-old stage and screen vet…
Sitting in close proximity with strangers on bleachers for several
hours a day, you overhear things while waiting for a show to start.
Yesterday, I overheard one retailer, who was perhaps in her 50s,
talking about how fashion has changed so much since she began in the
business. "There just isn’t that one defining look of the season that
you have to have now," she said…
Chaos. That was the scene at the New York Armory at Lexington and 25th, where Marc Jacobs held both of his shows (one for his main collection and another for his Marc by Marc line). Spindly-heeled passengers spilled out of black cars gathered in a giant bottleneck. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere. Walking to the armory from the East Village, I rounded the corner and heard a man say in his thick New York accent, “Look over dere. It’s all the fashionistas, goin’ to see…
MARC JACOBS
I was speaking with a few fashion friends who are European, and they were saying how visiting New York makes them feel like they’re in a movie. What New York gives them is a strong emotional experience. This is what fashion, at its best, should do. Marc Jacobs delivered that on Monday night, judging by the reactions of hard-nosed editors and reporters. Definitely a YSL tribute mixed with so many other elements: a tribute to America, to the American abroad. And all this set to Gershwin music! It slayed me…
Two days feels like two weeks when you are counting your life
in high-heel time. Let me explain high-heel time. High-heel time
moves like regular time if you’re seated. If you’re walking, it feels
double as long as normal time. And during those moments spent
shuffling oh-so-slowly down the bleachers and towards the door—leaving a fashion show is very similar to leaving a small concert—high-heel time means…
Suit up
Those who tromp around the financial district may have noticed the recent addition of tailors working in a storefront of Richard Bennett Custom Tailors (175 W. Jackson Blvd.; 312-913-1100). The “tailor in a fishbowl” concept is the centerpiece of the shop’s new space, meant to demystify the custom-tailoring process and show customers craftsmen at work. A city fixture since 1929, the tailor shop…
