For obvious reasons, I rather like the name of this store. And such a nice return policy, spelled out right on the marquis. So really, how can you go wrong at Gee & Gee? I would say it is pretty fontastic, all in all.

Exhibit A: corner of 6th Avenue and 40th Street, right near Bryant Park

The battle for advertising space continues in every marketable square foot of the Big Apple. See Exhibit A, above. Do you think it is right for the Subway sandwich board to encroach on Mister Softee's retail frontage like this? I think not. Mister Softee should learn to assert himself a bit. Don't you think?

Although you may be inclined to think so, this work is not by Tara Donovan.


This is (click here), but the above pictured is not.

Dear Tara Donovan,
Did you know that someone at the BCBG store near Bryant Park is a big fan of yours, to the point of um. Well. Appropriating the piece you just showed at the Metropolitan Museum and using it as a backdrop behind the register on the first floor? They missed the point though. Instead of using Mylar, the unnamed designer used an inflexible metal of some sort and did not capture the ephemeral quality of your work. I think you may want to investigate tout de suite.

Signed,
A concerned citizen.

Cursive at ABC Carpet & Home is a must-shop for stationary enthusiasts, and a must-see for those who love color, harmonious retail displays, and unique objects. In addition to beautifully bound leather books and elegant writing supplies, Cursive also carries jewelry and "curiosities" including decoupage trays by John Derian. Located on the first floor of the ABC flagship store, to the right of the main entrance.


Cursive at ABC
888 Broadway, 1st Floor
646.602.3806

Linhardt, the new jewelry shop and design studio on 1st Avenue
in the East Village will catch your eye and draw you right in.


One of the floating display cases, designed by Wary Meyers, shows off
Lisa Linhardt's own silver cuffs, made from re-purposed and recycled flatware,
creamers, water pitchers, and other assorted tableware.


White pendant lamps, designed by Wary Meyers.
Each lamp is made from two garden shop plastic planters. So clever!

My eyes flash as I run along 1st Avenue in the East Village on my way to an appointment. New jewelry store! Wow, nice font. Great store design. I must investigate on my way back.

I meet Lisa Linhardt, jewelry designer and owner of the eponymous studio and shop which opened May 2. She is gracious, humble about her many accomplishments, and passionate about using design to make human connections with artisans from other cultures. Lisa works with artisans from Colombia and Africa to craft aesthetically pleasing, economically viable pieces of jewelry, using their own indigenous renewable materials. Linhardt's "Seed Rings" are a case in point, made from sustainable tagua seeds, shaped to her specifications by Colombian artisans. Earlier this year, Lisa participated in a 100-mile walk across Kenya to help raise funds for Beads for Education. While there, she got to work with Maasai women to make special beaded bracelets for her collection. She now showcases the pieces in her store.

The store itself, custom-designed by Maine-based Wary Meyers has a calming, organic flow, and the rusticity of a New England shoreline. Design details, such as wall-mounted floating display cases, are all made from salvaged re-purposed materials. The door handle is taken from "a 70s wingback sofa which washed ashore on a Maine island." The various planks are rescued from an old church, schoolhouse, and barn in Maine. The pendant lamps are each made from two garden shop plastic planters.

Another facet of the Linhardt design studio is custom orders. Lisa and I had to cut our conversation short when an architect from L.A. made a beeline for Lisa's "Signature Ring," pictured here, on a recommendation from a New York friend. When Lisa said she could make the ring in her size right in the store, and have it ready in an hour and a half, the customer's eyes lit up. An hour and a half? Now that's service. I let Lisa get to it.

Be sure to visit this hidden gem of a store soon, before Linhardt is deluged with press, and the wait for a "Signature Ring" is 4-6 weeks.


Linhardt
Design Studio NYC
156 1st Avenue (9th & 10th Street)
East Village, New York
917.748.9000

Lisa is inspired to work with furniture designers because "they see jewelry in materials
that aren't typically used," such as this cuff in cork.


"Tagua Rings," shaped to Lisa's specifications by Colombian artisans.
The tagua seed (shown whole in foreground) is a sustainable natural seed from Colombia.
Lisa sees jewelry in everything, especially in nature. She is a natural sculptor.

Lisa Linhardt's own faceted "Ice Pixel Ring" in white jade, $135.
Doesn't this scream Barneys Coop? Lisa does not wholesale as of yet,
but perhaps in the future.
Available in additional colors and materials, only at Linhardt.


Linhardt also features work from several other designers,
such as this necklace, made from found vintage beads, by Joann Scully.

This post is featured on Coutorture for June 17, 2008





And also featured on Racked for June 18, 2008

Dandelion-colored chairs in front of the new wine shop.

13 featured wines this week.

When you walk in to Dandelion Wine at 153 Franklin Street in Greenpoint, you will notice quite a few interesting Spanish wines, perhaps some you have never seen before. Lily Peachin's latest obsession is Spanish wine, but not because it is the hot wine of the season. Owner of the newest addition to the Franklin Street retail scene, Lily focuses on wines with a story to tell.

Lily has a reverence for the earth and what it provides, having grown up on a farm in upstate New York. As such, she is interested in the wine makers, the vineyards, and in family-run businesses that have a true love for the soil and the earth. And if the product is organic or bio-dynamic, so much the better. I hear her tell customer after customer, "Be sure to come back and tell me what you think of it. I really want to know how you like it."

Lily is passionate about her new store in a neighborhood that has become a part of her over the years. She tells me that she dreamed of opening her own place when she moved to Greenpoint back in 1999. At that time on Franklin, there was only the Franklin Street Corner Store. She lived above the Greenpoint Coffee House, which was then a residential apartment. She wanted to open a place there, but it wasn't zoned for retail yet. At her current location at 153, her landlord has owned the building for 60 years, and is happy to see the changes happening on Franklin.

Lily is passionate about making her place a fun place to hang out and learn about wine. This evening (and every Friday) stop by for a wine and cheese sampling. On weekends check out live acoustic music and wine tastings. In the summer, stay tuned for monthly wine classes taught by a local expert, offered at reasonable prices. I am pretty excited about that. Dandelion Wine is open until midnight on weekends and until 11pm during the week. Stop in for a chat and check out the selection. I am sure you will find an interesting bottle or two to try.


previous post:
What Will Inhabit 153 Franklin?

Inside the store, back to front.

Franklin Street retail in Greenpoint gets more exciting by the day. Kill Devil Hill at 170 Franklin is one of the latest additions, tied with Dandelion Wine at 153 (both stores opened exactly one week ago today). I stopped in for my second browse today, and to speak with owners Mary Brockman and Cowboy Mark Straiton about their Western aesthetic and product mix of cool curiosities which references the real Big Sky Country, and not the one I joke about in Brooklyn.

Mary has had time to soak up the Western aesthetic, having lived in Oklahoma for a time and made plenty of trips by car between Texas and California. She describes the store as focusing on the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Cowboy Mark, a well-known DJ in New York and around Europe, was a rancher in the West for many years. A rancher! He described Kill Devil Hill's aesthetic as "Industrial Boom to Industrial Decline general store." I like it.

The retail stores on Franklin Street are organically developed; they are creative, unique visions of the shop keepers. Kill Devil Hill is no exception. The exciting part of this general store is that pretty much every time you visit, you will see new things. Cowboy Mark has "a whole barn-full" of unique one-of-a-kind items that will be gradually revealed. Brockman added that they both travel a lot and are always finding new things. I am looking forward to weekly visits to the general store on my way to get the "New Mexico" at the Franklin Street Corner Store.


Kill Devil Hill
170 Franklin Street
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
no phone yet

previous post:
New On Franklin: Kill Devil Hill

The floor-to-ceiling wall of Marigolds with Ganesh ceramic figure, bare lightbulb, and elevator button, mixed media, 2008, as I like to call it, is an eye-popper of a retail display. Go take a look. It is on the first floor of the ABC Carpet & Home flagship.

ABC Carpet & Home
888 & 881 Broadway
New York
212.473.3000

John Derian's decoupage plates

Inside John Derian Company Inc in the East Village,
there are curious objects everywhere you look.

I love how Bergdorf Goodman recreated John Derian's signature aesthetic on the 7th floor last Tuesday to showcase the decoupage designer's debut furniture collection. So much so that I wanted to pay a visit to Derian's East Village shops, and study his smaller design objects more closely. He has two shops right next store to each other on 2nd Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue.

If you are shopping for one of Derian's decoupage designs, there is certainly no shortage of selection at his store. Wow! The density of the objects displayed is heady. The mix of objects is pleasing too: Astier de Villatte terracotta slip-glazed pottery (modern yet with a 19th century quality) are displayed alongside "finger sponges" and other natural objects that look more like scientific curiosities than things you can purchase. But purchase them, you can. I especially love the wall of "mushroom consoles" made by Mark St. Clair near the back of the store on the left.

John Derian's retail design and unique aesthetic seems to borrow from Charles Wilson Peale's ideas about museum displays (he was a naturalist and a painter; see this painting). When I browse through Derian's store, I feel like I am in a museum of ethnography from the late 19th century. There is a curious mix of curious objects excavated from times past, displayed in wood-frame glass vitrines where the glass has melted a bit. There is an overwhelming amount of objects to explore and the room can start to close in on you, but it is worth the time spent discovering.

Puma's current "Retrieve-Retain-Revive" window

Now that Hussein Chalayan has become Puma's new creative director, as announced in WWD on February 29, it will be curious to see how the brand and stores evolve. Chalayan, avant garde fashion designer known for pushing the envelope (and also known for the envelope jacket Bjork wore (Post, 1995)), will design "all product categories -- footwear, apparel and accessories -- for Puma's Sport Fashion and lifestyle categories ... to be sold in select Puma stores, key concept stores, and shop-in-shops worldwide."

I paid a visit to the Puma store in Union Square, and had some fun speculating about what fixtures would be retained and what would be revived.



Retain: These display shelves, although a little bland, are similar in shape to the microchip elements on this dress from Chalayan's Spring 2007 Collection. The shelves just hang there doing nothing, however, unlike the dress, which morphs into different shapes ever so slowly.

Revive: In addition to the morphing, which is a really nice effect, we would like to see the shelves shoot lasers, like these dresses appear to. (The secret is Swarovski technology!)



Retain: Micro-stadium seating in the back of the store. The chalkboard wall is not really high-tech enough for Chalayan's tastes though.

Revive: Convert the space into a stadium-seat skirt like the one pictured here, and have models paint over the chalkboard in a performance piece that would ultimately be converted into a video loop and projected on the wall as a hologram.



Retain: The register area is all wrong, no matter how you slice it.

Revive: Change the imposing and uninviting corrugated steel to a material that is translucent and light-emitting, like the dress shown here from Chalayan's Spring 2007 Collection. Get rid of the boxiness, and opt for more inspiring organic forms, like circles. This dress could be used as the model for the new register area. Wouldn't you rather ring up your purchases in this environment?

Within the last two years, Franklin Street has supported the openings of three designer-driven boutiques (Dalaga, Alter, Hayden-Harnett), a bookstore (Word), a record store (Permanent Records), a furniture store (Claank), a Dominican-French restaurant (Casa Mon Amour), a cafe (Brooklyn Label), a wine store (to come), and most recently on March 15, a gallery-like boutique with a minimalist aesthetic called Jan & Aya.

Excited to examine the merchandise in person, I took the grand tour from owners, Carolyn and Kai. Jan & Aya, named for the couple's two children, features handmade objects that are well-crafted and beautifully designed. Categories include home (poufs, candles and soaps, pottery, glassware, art), child (shoes, clothing, toys), self (jewelry, tees, shoes), and come Sunday, cakes. Organic cakes from artisanal baker Sarah Magid will be available by the slice or by the cake every weekend. In the summer, customers will be able to enjoy a slice of cake on the back patio with some lemonade. That sounds great.

When asked why the couple chose Franklin Street for their first retail venture, Carolyn replied eloquently, "This is the street that is having a kind of Renaissance as far as community-based businesses. It speaks to the artist's community of Greenpoint."


Jan & Aya
99 Franklin Street
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
718.609.1404

Store hours:
Thursday-Friday 1-7pm
Saturday noon-7pm

Sunday noon-5pm

Are there plans for more shoes? According to Carolyn, there will be clogs for adults,
hand-painted clogs for kids, and come summer, flip flops of the Brazilian variety.

Set of 6 nesting bowls, $180.
Tea towels, right, by Skinny LaMinx.

The peaceful mood at Jan & Aya: fresh flowers and blossoming branches
mixed among the minimalist displays, exposed brick, white floors, vaulted ceilings,
and a sheer curtain that hints at a backyard patio space, to come.


Children's moccasins, $34; Owl, $38, both by Zid Zid


Poufs by Zid Zid, $80-$260.

Art pins by Ashley G., $3.
Carolyn found this artist on Etsy.

The 5th Avenue display window of the new Gucci flagship,
with "resurrected Gucci crest" front and center. The crest is a
recurring visual symbol throughout the store.

The women's collection on the third floor looks spacious in this photo,
but the dark carpet and the low ceilings make the space feel ponderous.
I just did not get that "exhilarated" shopping feeling.

The fixture choices -- gold racks, black and white striped walls -- are not
exactly a neutral backdrop for the clothes. What if a collection was composed
of cool tones and silvers?

The men's shoe collection on the second floor with the city as a backdrop.

Can you believe that Daniel Saynt of Fashion Indie apparently complained his way into the Gucci party at the UN? If I had only known that were an option... According to WWD, when Saynt "complained on his blog, to broad pickup around the Web, that actual New York-based bloggers had been shafted," he received an invite to the lavish party and attended a bloggers-only tour of the store hosted by chief executive Mark Lee. I decided to take a trip to the new Gucci flagship today, uninvited. Here are my observations, unsolicited.

After viewing the new store, I would like to say this: bring back the sleek, sexy, clean lines of Tom Ford's Gucci. The new flagship, which occupies the south-west corner of Trump Tower on 5th Avenue and 56th Street, employs design details that are reminiscent of the Miami in the 70s, and are rather, well, garish. I can't help but feel that the aesthetic of the Trump brand seeped through the walls and into the store; but I think the preponderance of gold is just a coincidence.

Three elements repeat throughout the store: gold, lucite, and high-shine dark wood. Gold and lucite tubing accent the back stairways. There are free-standing gold display cases accented with high-shine dark wood, the same dark wood that lines the inner walls. The ceilings seem to press downward. There are only three floors of retail space. (I expected five. That seems to be the minimum number of floors for flagships these days.) Access to the fine jewelry store through an elevator on the 3rd floor is convoluted. The only time I got a feeling of excitement about the Gucci brand was is in the shoe departments, which are bright with views of the street.

At a time when luxury retail design favors a blend of technology and innovative materials, high-shine white, glowing light boxes, flat panel screens, and etched glass glowing partitions, the dark Gucci flagship feels of the past. As I recall my experience of the store, it becomes more and more like a labyrinthine cave. For me, the store did not convey that feeling of optimism or excitement or exhilaration. I had no shopping high.

The back stairs: dark grey marble treads, alternating gold and lucite
vertical tubing give a glimpse into the selling space. The stairs at
Chanel were much more exciting.

Mannequin (no comment) and a closeup of the ubiquitous tubing.


The handbag collection display on the first floor is too dark.
The flat panel screen doesn't even add any light.

The sign lured me in. How could a resist a cappuccino
with heart-shaped foam saying hi to me? I couldn't.
And I'm glad I didn't.

New cafe on the block: El Beit opened earlier this month
on 158 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg

I was dazzled by the decor as soon as I walked in, particularly
the striped chairs. There is such fine attention to detail here.

Does that say 'cutting table'?? You've got my attention.

After my bag-purchasing trip to Brooklyn Industries, I passed an appealing sandwich board in front of the newest cafe on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg: El Beit. I've been eager to check out the decor of this place. And a cappuccino with heart-shaped foam was just what I was in the mood for. It will sound trite to say that as soon as I walked in, I was dazzled. But I was. The striped chairs, the minimalist space, the textures. Wow. Williamsburg is rapidly changing.

Coffee master, Dan Griffin who manages El Beit and (I don't want to say curates but) curates the coffee offerings, was kind enough to talk with me about the underlying details of the place. We discussed everything from decor to design to materials to coffee nuances. El Beit which means 'home' in Arabic and Hebrew, is owned by three brothers, one of whom, Bassam Ali currently works as a designer for Coach. The cafe tables that are stamped 'cutting table' are indeed cut from actual butcher block fabric cutting tables. Aha.

Bassam was largely responsible for the design and build-out of the space. Its centerpiece is a striking shingled coffee bar which was constructed from the facade of a barn. The shingles are oak. The surface is steel. The walls and ceiling of the cafe have been re-plastered and re-bricked to incorporate soothing curves. In fact, the flow of the entire space is pleasing. And yes, that was on purpose, Dan pointed out. The front door was relocated to be in line with the back door (also taken from the old barn), thus creating a better flow of traffic to an outdoor patio space that will be completed in the coming months.

The coffee menu is for the serious connoisseur. No super-sized 20 ounce cups dripping with peppermint syrup here. Thank goodness. On my next trip to El Beit, I will opt for a brewed-to-order cup from The Clover, a machine made in Seattle. As Dan explains, the dose, grind and brew time must be adjusted to bring out the particular flavors of each varietal. The resulting cup has a similar body to that of French press coffee. But you really have to try it. And so I will. Is it gauche to add milk? I'm not sure. Meet me for coffee!


El Beit Coffee
158 Bedford Avenue
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718.302.1810
Wi-Fi: yes
(no Website)

El Beit to go.

The classic tulip-bulb-shaped espresso and cappuccino cups, offers Dan,
are best for experiencing the full aroma and flavor of the espresso.
Like the wine glass does for wine. Dan is the sommelier of coffee.

The curves of the exposed ductwork mirror the curves of the ceiling.
You will enjoy examining every design detail of El Beit, each
thoughtfully considered. Very architectonic indeed.

The space is used so economically. And I love the choice of seating.
B-Pop Striped Chairs and Onda Counter Stools, both from DWR.

Attention coffee connoisseurs: have you ever heard of The Clover?
(The machine is made in Seattle!)
The dose, grind, and brew time must be adjusted for each varietal.
You must try an individually brewed-to-order cup on your next trip
to El Beit. I will join you.