Continuing my discourse on how skate-y, hypebeast-y brands are winning at retail, here’s a quick look at Champion’s recently opened NYC store. The Soho store is banking on a storytelling approach, enlightening younger customers to Champion’s 100-year sports heritage with display cases of archive pieces and flagging up its signature innovations such as ‘Reverse Weave’ sweatshirts. (more…)
New brand alert! Weepingly expensive but how beautiful. I discovered École de Curiosités via the Tiina The Store e-newsletter. It’s a Franco-Japanese brand by designer Hans Ito, produced in France from delicious-sounding new and vintage fabrics like ‘typewriter cotton’. Very much in the Egg-meets-Sofie-D’Hoore mould, it’s all roomy dresses, boyish shirts and relaxed linen tailoring. (more…)
Some lovely news for London retail. Sophie Hulme has just opened her boutique on Chiltern Street, joining Marylebone neighbours, Bella Freud, Mouki Mou, Cire Trudon, Trunk and Monocle Cafe (plus, Mr DRG’s fave haunt, John Simons). If you don’t know it, Chiltern Street is such a delightful shopping street, a block or two from Marylebone High Street, with a feeling of stumbling upon a secret discovery. In fact, when one high profile magazine editor discovered Mouki Mou, she didn’t tell her team for months lest they ruin the magic. (more…)
Every so often a label appears out of nowhere that piques my interest. Acephala is one of them. A four-year-old Polish brand that’s rooted in women’s rights with conceptual inspirations that are more wonky than worthy.
For example, its SS18 collection entitled ‘on how to be creative and not get mad’ championed ‘work wear’ pieces in Japanese denim, virgin wool and anti-crease tech fabrics. (more…)
