Great Articles: Invasion of the Pop-ups

"What if there was a bowling alley in the middle of a busy transit station?"

 

Why not.

 

And so far, this "What If?", "Why Not?" Culture has brought us to this point in reality, where you'd actually find that bowling alley in the middle of the Grand Central Terminal. The question is: is it wrong?



 

Grand Central Terminal: Bowling Alley?

Cubic Shopping: Uniqlo on the streets

  

While the article below will tell you that it can affect tourists and children, I believe that this pop-up culture has actually made the retail industry more exciting. It gives a different dimension to the lifestyles of people today. Whether it's a pop-up clothing store or a retailtainment idea, the good-to-know fact is that these new, hip, places-to-be have actually considered the effective life-span that they've always had. So that, on the retailers end, should the product be just a fad, the expenditures on permits, rent, fixtures costs dont go over-board, and the short span of time becomes a  safety net should they prefer to call it quits sooner than expected.

At the same time, this pop-up culture becomes a great incentive as well for shoppers/ consumers. With the product availability limited to a span of time, there's more reason to buy now rather than later. Also, there's a continued expectation for newer things and more exciting purchases from the same brand in the future.

Below you will find, a copy of the article from the NYTIMES mentioning involved retailers, how they executed their concepts, and  how much this new trend has grown in the past few months. 





Invasion of the Pop-Ups: Time for a Smackdown



By NEIL GENZLINGER

Somebody get me a large mallet.

There’s an epidemic in this town that seems to have reached crisis proportions in recent weeks, and it cries out for a whack-a-mole-style response. This has turned into the Summer of the Pop-Up.

Pop-ups — temporary business or cultural enterprises that materialize in empty storefronts, vacant lots and such, flaunting their own ephemerality — are hardly new, but suddenly they are everywhere. So are the news releases announcing them, which is the first clue that this phenomenon has lost any guerrilla chic it might once have had.

Roberta’s, the revered Brooklyn restaurant, currently has a pop-up version of itself in the East Village, associated with the mobile BMW Guggenheim Lab on urban life. Nearby, the Alphabet City Dolly Film Festival was scheduled for this weekend, billing itself as “a pop-up pub crawl and movie marathon.” (If “pop-up” and “pub crawl” seem to you to be a contradiction in terms, you are not alone.) Someone put a temporary bowling alley in Grand Central Terminal the other day for a teenagers’ competition, and same-sex weddings were performed last month in pop-up chapels in Central Park.

For a study in just how out of control this phenomenon is, stop by the northern end of the High Line park at West 30th Street.

As you come down from the park, an ugly stretch of blacktop (or, to quote the park’s Web site, “a vibrant and diverse gathering space for the neighborhood and the city at large”) is home to a pop-up food court called the Lot, which materialized a few months ago. Beside the Lot is a pop-up roller-skating rink sponsored by Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing concern. And now, beside the pop-up skating rink, two cube-shaped stores have popped up. Last weekend they were selling T-shirts and cashmere sweaters.

That’s right, a pop-up has sprouted a pop-up, which has in turn sprouted two more pop-ups. Whack, whack, whack, whack.

I’m not saying that pop-ups can’t be worthy.

Pop-Up SoHo on Wooster Street, an art exhibition staged by an outfit called the Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, has compelling stuff in it, some of it by young people from a program at the Hetrick-Martin Institute.

The institute promotes a kind of tolerance for alternative versions of sexuality that did not exist a few decades ago, a contrast that was startlingly evident on Tuesday night when the pop-up hosted an evening featuring performances by the students: poetry, plays, even a fashion show.

As the students performed, on a wall nearby was an artwork called “Sip-In” by Tim McMath depicting a protest in 1966 by three gay men challenging a discriminatory passage in regulations governing liquor service. The New York Times put this headline on its article about the protest: “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” Sheesh.

So, no, it’s not that pop-ups are inherently evil. My objection is, in part, to the term itself, and its sudden ubiquity. So many people are tossing it around now that it has achieved “hipster” status: that is, as with that word, merely using it labels you a shameless bandwagon-jumper.

And who picked this term, anyway? I’m not sure which usage came first, but why continue to label something with a phrase that also describes the second-worst thing on the Internet, the pop-up ad?

Computer aficionados knew better when they went searching for a name for the No. 1 worst thing on the Internet. “Hmm, we need a way to describe this gremlin that’s destroying our computers. What word has really negative connotations in the real world? I know: ‘virus.’ ” Perfect.

But when the tables were turned, the mental calculation went inexplicably awry. “Hmm, what phrase can I use to make people want to come spend money at my temporary T-shirt cube? I know; I’ll pick something that annoys the heck out of everyone who has ever touched a computer keyboard: ‘pop-up.’ ” It’s akin to naming your skin-care salon Leprosy.

Beyond the annoyance factor in the term itself, though, I’m concerned about the effect the pop-up phenomenon is having on two of our most vulnerable populations: tourists and children.

Tourists have enough trouble finding our most permanent, most visible attractions, as evident from the fact that you cannot linger in Midtown for five minutes before someone asks you where the Empire State Building is.

It won’t take many exchanges like this one before our tourist industry goes the way of garment-making and meatpacking:

“Excuse me, I’ve come 4,000 miles to see the Archery and Anchovies sports-booth-plus-pizza parlor that I read about last year. Can you direct me to it?”

“Archery and Anchovies? That was a pop-up, pal; it shut down last October. I think there’s a Pinkberry there now.”

And don’t children have enough impermanence in their lives, what with parents getting divorced, pop-culture heroes being jailed, pets dying, television shows being canceled and so on?

“Mommy, please tell me that the Gallery of Post-Proto-Feminist Fabric Art won’t disappear like Daddy did when he ran off with my nanny.”

“Well, Timmy, it won’t be in this same spot — I think they’re putting a Pinkberry there — but they’re sending it to a farm upstate where it can live with all the other pop-up galleries.”

“WAAAAH.”

We need to put a stop to the pop-up infestation now. A City Council committee on the issue needs to be created immediately. Ad hoc, of course.

 



Great Articles: "Dress Codes in New York Clubs: Will This Get Me In?"

I've always been curious as to what makes today's "happening" places tick. Coming from behind the lines of media, people have come to agree that it is the beautiful people that can make any club- dingy or not- one of the popular choices for weekend game-planning. For example, here in Manila, we know for a fact that the great clubs/lounges are those actually financially and reputationally-backed up by Manila's socialites. And in knowing so, everyone flocks to these clubs with the (subconscious or not) thought that if those kinds of people party here, I must party here.

Today, however, I found myself reading an article that feeds new insights into the same topic- begging one to ask:

What if it's not the beautiful people, but the beautifully dressed people that actually make the place a hotspot?

Below is an article from the NYTIMES that talks about "dress codes" as the new standard of hot retail spots in NY. Apparently, its not who you are but what you wear that will get you in.

P.S. Does this also mean that Fashion is so powerful today that you can use it to dictate who your market ( and only market) will be?

Source: NYTIMES

July 27, 2011

Dress Codes in New York Clubs: Will This Get Me In?

By DOUGLAS QUENQUA

GENTLEMEN who prefer Ed Hardy shirts, those dragon-happy hallmarks of “Jersey Shore” chic, will not be getting into the Mulberry Project, the subterranean speakeasy cocktail lounge in Little Italy, any time soon. If you prefer your dress shirts colorful and boldly striped, don’t bother with the club Provocateur, in the meatpacking district. Baggy, low-slung jeans your style? Lots of East Village bars may be O.K. with that, but there will be no Continental for you tonight.

 Dress codes have long been the secret language of New York City night life; fluency can mean the difference between an epic night out and a humiliating kick to the curb. “There’s nothing that dresses a room like a crowd,” said Ian Parms, an owner of the Mulberry Project. “The ambience of the experience is the people around you, so it’s important for us to keep those people fashion-forward and eclectic and interesting and engaging.”

 Beyond being inherently snobbish, such selectivity has invited charges of racism. In December, the New York City Commission on Human Rights opened an investigation (still in progress) into the Continental, a sports bar in the East Village on Third Avenue, for its “no baggy jeans or bling” policy, which civil rights groups called a barely concealed ploy to keep out blacks. Trigger Smith, the owner of the Continental, denied that he was trying to exclude people of a certain race. “It just so happens that more minorities wear these” kinds of clothes, he told The New York Times in January. “There isn’t a racist bone in my body.”  One reason some may have found the Continental’s policy hard to swallow is the bar’s otherwise obvious lack of interest in fashion. On a typical Saturday night, the Continental’s mixture of frat boys and barflies sports an unironic mélange of ripped blue jeans, grubby backpacks, baseball hats and sneakers. (And for what it’s worth, the crowd was about 30 percent black on a visit in April.)

 But Mr. Smith’s defense illuminates a truth about dress codes at even the most exclusive velvet-roped clubs: they are frequently intended to keep out a certain type of person. The clothes themselves are secondary.

Michael Satsky, proprietor of Provocateur, at the Gansevoort Hotel (but now on a brief summer hiatus), admitted that he strived to keep his bar free of the randy bridge-and-tunnel boys who prowl the neighborhood on weekends. Luckily for him, they apparently self-identify through their shirts.

“We do not do plaid, and we don’t do stripes,” he said. The ideal Provocateur guest “doesn’t have to wear crazy stripes on his shirt to draw attention to himself.” (Plaid was just fine, however, at the closing night of Beige in the East Village a few months ago, where nearly every fashionable gay man who showed up seemed to be clad in a gingham shirt.)

Mr. Satsky suggests that his male patrons wear “a blazer, a solid button-down or a solid sweater.” For women, shoes are key. “Minimum five-inch heel,” he said. “Christians are our favorite,” he added, referring not to the faithful but to Christian Louboutin, the designer known for his red soles. Jimmy Choo and Christian Dior are also welcome. If the crowd in Provocateur on any given night is a gauge, being European, gorgeous and at least 5-foot-10 is good, too.

An injunction against flannel, shorts and other typical brunch fashions helps convey the message that the sparklers-and-champagne bacchanal known as the Day and Night Brunch, which until June was held at the Plaza, is for socialites and financiers, not hotel guests in search of French toast, said Daniel Koch, who runs the weekly party with his twin brother, Derek.

“You get guys in from L.A., they think a brunch is a brunch,” Mr. Koch said. “We have to say, ‘Look, dude, this isn’t what you think it is.’ You can’t rock a T-shirt here unless you’re a rock star.”

(How does one dress for a brunch that resembles a Russian oligarch’s stag party? Ladies should consider brightly colored dresses or skirts and avoid cleavage-baring blouses. “You don’t want that in your face at brunch,” said Mr. Koch, who now holds his brunch at different locations each week, including the Hamptons and St.-Tropez. Guys “need an edge; wear a bow tie or, if you have to, go out and buy a $400 pair of sunglasses.”

New Yorkers fleeing the city in summer may think they’ve earned a vacation from judgment, but they’re wrong — particularly at South Pointe, a hot new dance club in Southampton, N.Y.

“We cater to the ‘authentic’ Hamptons crowd,” said Ben Grieff, an owner, “people who are actually from the Hamptons, not just people who drive out here to see a big D.J.” (Mr. Grieff clarified: “From the Hamptons” refers to people whose parents had a summer home there as a child, not to duck farmers.)

Keeping out the time-share crowd means a strict (though unadvertised) policy forbidding vacation wear like flip-flops or shorts. Hamptons wannabes tend to “just show up after dinner thinking everything is going to be fine in shorts and sandals,” he said. But “our friends dress right out of a Ralph Lauren advertisement.” What does that mean? “Tapered jeans, dress shoes, colored button-downs, women in elegant sundresses.”

The days when “jacket required” was enough to ensure a better element of patron began dying after World War II, said Anne Hollander, a fashion historian and author of “Seeing Through Clothes.” As fashion standards relaxed and television and movies took a more central role in American culture, people ceased to dress according to class and began dressing according to character.

“Today, people dress in costume,” she said. “We wear what we wish to be seen as,” whether that’s an emo kid, a Guidette (a female Guido) or a gangster.

Hence, the surest way for proprietors to create the “right” atmosphere in their clubs is to keep out the crowd they don’t want by banning an essential element of their style.

 Ryan Dusheiko, general manager of Riff Raff’s, a new tiki-themed club in the Flatiron district, put it simply, “It’s not what you’re wearing; it’s who you are.” (Guys confused by the upscale tiki-lounge concept are encouraged to wear “a nice sports coat, a really great flower-print shirt underneath, maybe a matching pocket square,” Mr. Dusheiko said. “We respect individuality.”)

 For patrons, such flexibility can be either liberating or paralyzing, depending on their level of comfort with fashion. Who knows what you can get away with where anymore? Lauren Cosenza, a makeup artist who lives in NoLIta, said she has learned to dress for the neighborhood, not the club.

 “Different neighborhoods reflect different tribes,” said Ms. Cosenza, who can be found in clubs like GoldBar, in Little Italy; Griffin, in the meatpacking district; and XIX, in NoLIta, four to five nights a week. For example, the hipster bars on the Lower East Side prefer “natural fabrics, lots of skinny denim on boys and girls, a lot of draping fabrics and muted colors.” The East Village is “more rock ’n’ roll with punk undertones” (try ripped or distressed denim). “Meatpacking is your party dress, your five-inch heels, designer bags.” In SoHo and NoLIta, she said, anything goes.

 “I once saw a woman in GoldBar wearing pajama pants,” Ms. Cosenza recalled, insisting the woman pulled it off, thanks to the right accessories — a “cool tank top and thick shoes”— and tons of confidence. “To walk into a place and know it’s ridiculous but I couldn’t care less because I’m rockin’ my pajama pants,” she said, “that’s very SoHo.”

 Of course, many club owners are loath to admit they have any dress code at all. They posit that anything works as long as you wear it with confidence.

“There are people who can put together a T-shirt and jeans and sneakers and make it look as good as a three-piece suit,” said Eugene Remm, who oversees Tenjune and SL in the meatpacking district, “and there are people who can wear a three-piece suit and make it look sloppy.”

 “Fashion is totally personal now,” Mr. Remm continued. “So it’s kind of a joke when someone says, ‘This is our dress code.’ It’s how a person holds himself up. It’s all personality.”

Great articles: The Great Leap into the Social Network

While our Marketing classes always presumed that direct advertising is a rare choice for Luxury brands, which mostly rely on Public relations, it seems that everyone now is tuning into a new marketing space that has its advantages for all kinds of products, regardless of their target market.

MANGO turns 60

The collection was filled with classic cuts in easy-to-wear colors like black, white, red and navy. There were just enough design details in the wardrobe staples — leather tuxedo stripes on pants, a wrinkled effect on a golden suit, or puffs of feathers on a white lace T-shirt — to give the outfits some personality. The judicious mix of practical and party clothes showed a well-thought-out line for a fashionable young woman on a budget, with prices at around €70, or about $100, for a cream blazer and €160 for a maxi evening dress. (NYTIMES)

Check out their new collections here:

 MANGO

TO boot the BOOT? or not?

Perhaps as a cosignor in Travel Club?

Wo/Mens Wear: Salvor Projects

Re-defining the Clothed street:

Specializing in screen prints, they hope to cater to a range of customers from the Madison Avenue woman interested in a graphic tote bag to your average skateboarder looking for a printed shirt. ( T Magazine)

         "simultaneously daring yet utterly wearable quality"  (NBC)

The line focuses on prints, hand-applied in Salvor’s Manhattan studio, and overlaid on traditional men’s shirts, Cone Denim jeans, and gauzy silk dresses. Oversized scarves are printed with vintage photos: some with swooping eagles, others with William Burroughs (who lived for much of his old age just across the street) brandishing a gun. (It’s the first time the Burroughs Foundation has approved and licensed the use of his image.) “We wanted to make things we couldn’t buy,” Menuez explains simply. From the silver-coated Bowie-esque jeans to shirting-fabric anoraks so overprinted the material feels like technical nylon, there’s little chance you could buy them before he dreamed them—and less chance still you’ll find them anywhere else.

check them out at: http://www.salvorprojects.com/

Retail Spotting: Hugo Boss Re-opens in Soho

What makes a store manly?

 

In light of the re-opening of the Hugo Boss store in Soho, it somehow jerked the question of how men's brands make their stores appealing to men. Although there's a growing number of men-shoppers, retailers still are very careful, if not safe, when it comes to designing their men's wears stores.

Just makes you wonder why...does it always have to look soooo...industrial?



5CM store



or is it really just a man thing?

Retail Spotting: Forte dei Marmi

Use your eyes: Flea Markets at their best.

Jumping off from an interesting article published in the Wall Street Journal, I can't stress enough the true importance of understanding the countless possible retail scenarios.

With the whole culture of fashion blogs eating into the industry, rarely do you find outstanding outfits put-together simply from shopping at a mall.

These days, the best and most followed fashionistas are those who know how to get deals from hole-in-the-wall retailers and at the same time, use established fashion brands to accent their outfits.

So, in light of embracing how people today love to shop, we will be dropping tidbits on the great flea markets around the world.

Here's our first choice:

FORTE DEI MARMI, Italy- Piazza Marconi is  "a shopping Mecca every Wednesday and on Sundays during the summer. This is the place to be if you are visiting Forte Dei Marmi. The market opens at 8.00 and stays open until 14.00. Various traders from all over Italy ravel down to the market to sell their wares. If you are looking for some big designer names, you will find them too in Forte Dei Marmi’s weekly market. Valentino, Gucci and Prada Armani are just some of the designer brands that you will find here.

'This market has something for everyone, from expensive and exclusive designer wear to cut-price imitations of some of your favorite designer wears.'

Apart from clothing and accessories, the open air boutiques also offer you an exceptional collection of linens, exquisitely crafted house hold items, ceramics and shoes at real bargain prices." (world66)

Wish upon a brand a day

There are always so many rumors about H&M coming to Manila,

and if they actually are coming in by 2011- 

The truth is simply (and it is a fact) that it probably wont be happening soon.

So for now, this brand will have to stay on our wish list..

Just a thought though, if H&M does come to Manila,

which of your current brands will you give up/ replace the big retailer with?

Wish upon a brand a day

This day and age, it wouldn't be surprising if you find a beauty dating a geek.

Why? because Geeks make all girls more beautiful. AND NO- not just by standing next to them,

its the stuff they invent <3

Exhibit A: PANASONIC LUMIX FX77

"It has a beauty retouch feature, which adds luminosity to skin, brighten eyes and whitens teeth. The function can also add a hint of blush and a swipe of lipstick to your images if you so desire." -SEPHORA BLOG

"The Beauty retouch mode of this Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX77 digital camera is enable of virtually makeup of the faces and the latest cosmetic mode will allow to take portraits with favored skin color including soft skin,summer look, and  natural skin." -solidblogger

"The Makeup Retouch was fun to play with, giving you the ability to choose how your blush is applied (on the apples, up the cheekbones), between a natural or rosy lip color, or whether to add colorful or neutral shadows." -Sophia Panych, editorial assitant of ALLURE

without beauty feature and with beauty feature. (notice the lack of eyebags)

enough said. genius.

P.S. D can also be for DIGITAL WALKER (where you might find stocks of this awesome gadget)

Wish upon a brand a day

Famous for their fun collaborations with big names in the industry, such as H&M, Converse, Speedo, Nike, and even Louis Vuitton,  Comme des Garcons collections never fail to spark curiosity in the Fashion world.

Why we love it: designs are always unique and edgy in nature and they are full-range! (From apparel to leather goods to perfume and fun accessories)

retail shhhhh: We hear an outlet will be opening in Manila real soon.

Wish upon a brand a day

 

HOW MUCH MORE EXCITED CAN WE BE FOR

essences

TO OPEN?

Bobbi Brown, the cosmetic world's bb, used to be a theatrical makeup artist who teamed up with a chemist to create lipsticks. Having caused a stir in the world of retailers, make-up giant Estee Lauder bought the company in 1995 and continues to grow the make-up lines with different collections each year.

why we love Bobbi B?: This is the one brand you can trust if you have problematic skin or one you can always turn to when building your make-up arsenal.

known for: Concealers, Lipsticks, Makeup Manuals

Wish upon a brand a day

 is for 

  From the same motherland as our favorite H&M, Acne Jeans hit it off in the market in 1996. Today, however, acne jeans stretches its designs beyond the manufacturing of denim and continues to allure different parts of the world with their annual two-season collections of womens and men's wear.

So in the likes of edgy-ness and slight minimalism, do we or do we not think this will fly
 with fashionable Manila?

The New Burger on the Block

With all the new food concepts that are kicking down Manila's doors, it seems like those from Japan are the most rad.

Who would ever thought anyone would bring in a concept that solely strives on burger-lovin' foodies?

The catch, however, is that this new concept brings in a different kick to eating meat patties- unlike any burger chain, it strives to be a dine-in restaurant that serves burgers alone (no buns, ketchup, etc).

Gratin and Shrimp Sauce

If you still can't imagine it, the experience is similar to biting the juiciest burgers in your dreams- the right kind of crusty crunch then chewing into the moistest meat slathered in your choice of sauce.

So far, the top 3 that really got us digging in for seconds were:

     - Japanese Gravy!

     - Curry
     - Tomato with Patis sauce
  

Japanese sauce with mushrooms      

  So with all the right intentions, we really do recommend this concept! It's affordable at around 300 pesos for 300g of meat (1 BIG patty) and can be served with (if you choose) a siding of japanese rice and corn soup and would definitely be a regular dinning place for students, families, and groups of friends.

On another note, it could just be the next hot (minus the sizzling plates) Japanese lunch concept to hit Manila.

Tomato with Patis Sauce

Curry!

Tartar sauce

Melted cheese and mayo sauce 

Japanese gravy

                           <3

Sneaky, sneaky: J.C. Penny +Aldo= Manila?

Is it the better Payless?

Flipping through a local magazine, I saw this ad:

And below it, "Soon to open at Greenbelt 3 an Robinsons Ermita".
If you dont know what the brand is, (like me), here's a little info to fill you up:

Call it Spring is J.C. Penny's new venture into the many designer collaborations that have been taking retail by storm since last year, specifically though, Call it spring is the flowerchild of Aldo and J.C. Penny.
It's cheap, fast fashion in the form of shoes.

They have stuff for the men...

women...

 

Bags:

According to Elle Girl, CallitSpring is a "smattering of youthful and affordable footwear, perfect for the Aldo fanatic who is looking to pinch a few pennies."

So would you buy Aldo quality at half the price?