Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Tales Of London: Part 3: TOPSHOP TAKES MANHATTAN!


Fueled by my Topshop high, especially after a trip to the Oxford Circus flagship location -- an exhaustive, cavernous 100,000-square-foot fashion emporium (this location alone pulls in
$292 million a year) that features three floors, 200 changing rooms, a hair salon, nail parlor, eyebrow bar, make-up stations, personal style consultants who will deliver your goods to you via SCOOTER and an entire section devoted to CANDY! -- I returned to Amurica more excited than ever (especially after the dollar is worth about as much as a Chuck E Cheese token over there) for Topshop to arrive stateside. As it turns out, my superficial prayers have been answered, because...

TOPSHOP IS COMING TO NEW YORK IN SEPTEMBER 2008!


Drapers confirmed it in November 2007, as did WWD, but those bastards make you pay to play. Good think the awesome Racked scooped it back in October 2007, complete with location, photos and all!


The premiere USA Topshop will be located at:

478 Broadway near Broome Street in Soho

That's currently the site (see my helpful Google map below!) of the dreadful Yellow Rat Bastard, and while it's sorta sad to see another Soho staple go (like when Canal Jeans because Bloomingdales [Co-op]), let's be honest -- Soho isn't even a shell of its former self, AND, hello IT'S GONNA BE A FUCKING TOPSHOP! And, while the two H&Ms (I wonder how they'll fare as a result of the Topshop traffic -- will they benefit from the predictable spillover, or will there be Topshop-induced tumbleweeds a-blowin'?), Muji, Bloomie's, CB2, et al have made navigating Broadway del Sur an Inferno-esque nightmare, I again refer back to my original point: TOPSHOP IS COMING TO NEW YORK!



View Larger Map


Anyway...

Hundreds of fashionistas lined up outside Barneys just to get their hands on Kate Moss' capsule pieces last year. And recall the veritable affordable-fashion riots that H&M's New York arrival generated. (Think Beatlemania, except instead of 1964, it's 2008, and instead of the Beatles coming down off the plane onto the Tarmac, imagine super cute $16.90 graphic print dresses and $48 skinny jeans! Yay! Then imagine people getting trampled to death! Boo. ) I can only imagine the scene the opening of Topshop -- by the way, they say September, and even though construction has already begun, who knows if the schedule will hold up, though if I were Sir Phillip Green, I'd be rarin' to get this puppy off the ground. And if this article, which details how the Oxford Circus location prepared for its biggest shopping day of the year, is any indication of how the Big Reveal will be handled, I'm sure the kids will have it on lockdown. Which doesn't mean I won't skip the opening ceremonies (unless I get a personal invite of course, which, if you're reading, Topshop PR peeps, I would GRACIOUSLY accept!) and wait until the 11th hour of the following Tuesday night before I hit it up. But only because I fear for my personal safety.

More Topshop love and linkage:
+ June 2006: The Times treads cautiously. (Fuck 'em! I'll skip 'em in line!)
+ May 2007:The Independent takes a look at Topshop's ascent to retail victory.
+ September 2007: The New Zealand Herald explores how totes good marketing turned the once cheesy chain into a fashion giant.

And finally, Catwalkqueen reveals Topshop's Spring 2008 designer collabos: Jonathan Saunders and Louise Goldin. Coming later this month, Christopher Kane, which should beat the high-waisted pants off Kate Moss' rather "meh" collection. Now, hurry the hell up, Topshop, and expatriate already!!!!


Monday, November 12, 2007

Roberto Cavalli For H&M: PANDEMONIUM AND PANIC In NYC

(Photo via FabSugar)

I'm not a morning person in any way shape or form, whatsoever. Ever-ever ever. So not even 18 alarm clocks, my cat walking across my face and a pack of wild horses could rouse me at the ungodly hour of whatever time I'd have had to have gotten up to make it to the 8AM press call for the launch of Roberto Cavalli for H&M at the chain's 5th Avenue flagship location here in New York.

Seriously, not even if they'd have given me a key to the store and the green light to clear the place out on their dime, I still doubt I'd have made it. And from the looks of this video footage of the mayhem of the line's launch in Amsterdam, I'm quite glad:



Doesn't this remind you of waaaay back in the day when people got trampled to death at Toys R Us trying to get their consumption-happy hot little hands on new Cabbage Patch Kid Dolls to give their bratty kids for Christmas? (My mom gave us a fake, ghetto-fab off-brand Cabbage Patch Kid, for which I thank her -- this was just the beginning of me learning the value of a good knock-off!)

Check out the rather horrifying fashionista-on-a-budget bloodbath at Style Crunch, while Catwalk Queen details the mayhem in the UK. Oy. See, I had braces for many years and value the money my parents spent on my orthodontia too much to risk getting my teeth out over a $20 serpentine bracelet:


(Which is currently going for three times its price on eBay.)

The H&M blog (what?) has lots more footage of INSANE people who got there at 7p.m. THE.FUCKING.NIGHT.BEFORE, plus pix of Cavalli himself and model Jessica Stam, who also showed up (again, exciting, but not exciting enough to merit waking up at like 5).

I think the best part of this story is the part that has nothing to do with the story -- Roberto (we're on a FNB -- first-name basis -- you know), dressed up as Karl Lagerfeld for Halloween. Ha!

Anyway, did any of you faithful F.'Bingers go?