My husband has had his eye on this Stanfield’s long john onesie since we first stepped into Mr. Lees General Store and Haberdashery off of Main Street. So today, after having coffee with a new friend (a European one, which is doubly exciting!) I popped into the store to buy him a red one for Valentine’s day.

This photo from the Stanfield's website is not very cool.

Mr. Lee’s was very busy, and I didn’t want to tempt myself by looking around too much, as I knew it would end up being expensive, but it is a very cool store, definitely worth checking out. Here are a couple of photos and a blurb from their blog.

“Mr. Lee’s has a curated selection of accessories, clothing and accompaniments that we feel are noteworthy, rare and purposeful, and above all else special. In addition to this we carry a template of product that was sold by general stores of the 1930’s &40’s: specialty foods, hard goods, apothecary, magazines, fine paper products, flowers and notions.”

And here’s the onesie photos.

Brown paper bags are totally underrated.

Stanfield's is very Canadian.

This onesie has great benefits!

Not sure how comfortable I am about posting photos of my husband in his (long) underwear.

The new Alice in Wonderland movie directed by Tim Burton is bound to be a visual feast. It will come out on March 5th, and the stars include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway. I looked up some of the visuals on the movie’s website, and they look amazing.

Now, with that in mind, maybe someone can explain this disastrous Alice in Wonderland themed window at Printemps.

A bit of background, Printemps is a big luxury department store in Paris. Powerful retailers, such as Printemps, sometimes ask brands to create special pieces for them, which can be exclusive limited edition collections or special display items, which will help the store to sell the brands.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how much I miss shopping in Europe...

So, Printemps has asked designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Chloé, Charles Anastase, and Haider Ackermann to design special pieces for their Alice in Wonderland-themed window displays. These are all designers that I respect and like, so I really cannot understand why the resulting window displays do not look very Alice in Wonderland, or fairy tale, or interesting at all. It basically looks like the designers, aside from Maison Martin Margiela and Nicholas Kirkwood, couldn’t be bothered to actually make something for the window, so they took an old piece from an old collection and made up an Alice “story” to go along with it.

Seriously, how is any of this related to Alice in Wonderland? (By the way, the images and quotes below come from an article on Style.com, you can read more about it here.)

Chloe says: "“Running around careless and free in a romantic dress, falling down the rabbit hole, chasing time in a dreamlike state of mind, meeting unexpected characters with many tales to tell—sounds like many a girl’s night out!” I say: boring navy blue dress worn best on a "fat day."

Charles Anastase says: "“I went to John Tenniel’s original illustration of Alice for inspiration. She’s seated at a table having tea, and her dress looks much more asymmetrical and theatrical than that boring Walt Disney version.” I say: A white and blue pouffy dress does not equal Alice in Wonderland.

Haider Ackermann says: "“My favorite character is the Duchess, who at first seems nearly as unpleasant as the Queen of Hearts. When I was designing this piece, I was seeing Alice running, escaping through the forest destroying her shiny dress." I say: This dress looks nothing like Alice in Wonderland, or the Duchess. In fact, that horrible rounded slit on the front makes the dress go from "interesting" to "scary."

Here are some of the better pieces.

Nicholas Kirkwood says: "“I think my favorite Alice character is the March Hare. You can see I’ve made his watch rather prominent. ...this time, I figured, why not just pile as much as I can on top?” I say: Nicholas Kirkwood has one shoe shape he has redone a million times, and its starting to get boring, but at least that one shoe is pretty cool. Especially with all that stuff piled onto it.

Maison Martin Margiela says: "“Alice’s silhouette is a blue upside-down dress with cage sleeve, as if she walked through the mirror and her dress completely reversed.” I say: This dress is beautiful, combining the fantasy of the fairy tale and the innovation of Maison Martin Margiela, and the colour is exactly the right shade of Alice blue.

Cartoon Alice image source.

I went into the new Oakley store on Robson street last week (this was not out of choice, it was part of a project I am doing) and was very impressed with their custom eyewear line. I wouldn’t normally set foot into an Oakley store unless I was in the market for snowboarding goggles, although they do other stuff too, like ski apparel and watches.

The new store on Robson street has this line of custom eyewear, where you can choose the frames and the lens colour and they’ll have them ready for you same day. (Bad news, if you want prescription lenses, they can’t do that same day…)

At first I though the only person who can get away with these is the Australian guy with perma tan, bleached blond hair, and who wears board shorts year round, no matter what the weather. But then I tried a pair on, and thought these could be very fun with slicked hair and a worn with lots of black.

Maybe I am getting a bit obsessive over eyewear at the moment, but I am still really loving these crazy things.

The collaboration we are all dreading: Jimmy Choo and Ugg.

There has been so many new product launch announcements in the past few weeks.

• Armani is doing a collaboration with Reebok
• and… Armani is making chocolate
• Diane Von Furstenberg is launching home decor
• Acne has launched furniture
• Paris Hilton is launching swimwear and lingerie
• Bebe is collaborating with Kim Kardashian (barf)
• Versace is launching a cell phone
• Tory Burch and Alexis Bittar are giving Barbie a makeover
• Gucci is launching couture
• Steve Madden is collaborating with Diana Ross

Great to hear these brands are doing so well that their allocating ressources to brand extensions, but isn’t it a bit strange that no one seems content to stick to what they do? Are these new products really going to expand profits or increase profiles, or are they just activities to get short bursts of media attention? I’m all for brands expanding into relevant product areas and interesting collaborations like Louis Vuitton’s artist series and H&M designer collections, but some of these brands are overdoing it, don’t you think?

Image source.

I’ve had some very good and some very bad shopping experiences this week in Vancouver. You can read about my bad ones here and here. But yesterday I had the pleasure of discovering some very cool retailers for a Vancouver shopping guide I am doing for my friend’s London website, Urban Junkies. I’ll be mentioning a lot of them over the next few weeks, but today I’d like to show you some photos of a really cool store on Main and 8th called Lark.

The concept is heritage brands and classic clothing, but with an edge. It seems they get a lot of people coming in to buy the traditional French Saint James nautical sweaters and tees, but they also carry really beautiful european brands like Bruuns Bazaar, by Malene Birger, Frank Leder (who was in my gradaute class at Saint Martins), Barbour, and Mackintosh. They also sell Chimala jeans and Yoshi Kondo.

I bought this Bruuns Bazaar top at Lark yesterday, I am trying to get more colour into my wardrobe at the moment.

Bruuns Bazaar is a Danish brand. I have a minor obsession with clothing that makes neat geometric shapes when they are flat.

Part of the shopping trip also involved a trip to Gastown, and I bought this diamond ring napkin ring from Parliament. I am going to wear it as a pendant. They do the usual modern furniture and homewares, which you find a lot of in Gastown, but their selection is very affordable, which makes a nice contrast to somewhere like Inform across the street (which, by the way, has extremly cold and uninterested sales people.) Parliament also has a very beautiful and soft shop dog. It is taking me a while to get used to the concept of going into a shop and meeting a dog, but I love it.

Before I talk a little about my Vancouver dislikes, I need to say that when people say it is one of the best cities in the world to live in, trust them, because its true. Cheap sushi, nearby beach and mountain, and an excellent standard of living are only some of the reasons. People are nice, genuinely nice. You can drink tap water. The views are phenomenal. Education and public services are great. You can buy Chanel and Louis Vuitton, but in two hours by car you can be in the middle of nowhere. So generally, Vancouver=good. But there are a lot of crappy things about this town, and one of them is the way its residents perceive it.

Some people say you’re as old as you feel. How about, you’re as cool as you feel. So many people here say “Vancouver is casual” or “Vancouver is laid back” or “we just wear casual clothes here, we don’t care about fashion”. Well, Vancouver, if you keep thinking like that you will perpetually be the town “where people are healthy and dress badly.”

I moved here and I want it to become more hip and interesting, so we can have the best of both worlds. This ridiculous “The World Needs More Canada” display at Chapters book store doesn’t help us one bit. In preparation for the Olympics, we are promoting ourselves and Canada as a great place. People know that Canada is a great place, but they might change their mind when they see idiotic displays like this one.

It basically sums up every Vancouver stereotype I hate, all nicely put together in a dsiplay in a store on our busiest shopping street.

1. Hockey. I have no problem with hockey or sports, but I have a problem with this cities obsession with hockey. I lived in Engand for 10 years, and aside from during the World Cup and Euro Cup tournaments, I could always escape football (soccer) beacuse the Brits understood that not everyone wants to watch a match or a game when they are eating or drinking. But not in Vancouver. Here, every single restaurant and bar has a hockey match playing on a TV.I was in a greek restaurant, watching a belly dancing performance, and they still had the hockey on.



2. Umbrellas. Yup, it rains here, non stop, so I guess the tourists will want to be buying these umbrellas for their stay here, or maybe take them back to their home country as a souvenir of the town that always rained. (Brits, you think england rains? It doenst rain half as much as rains here.)



3. Reusable water bottles. This is for use during exercise and yoga, and that is important because that is how we spend 90 percent of our free time here in Vancouver (the other spare time is spent watching sport, ie. Hockey). I am against disposable waterbottles because I hate the idea of all the waste, but I can’t bring myself to buy one of these reusable ones because A-it means I have officially moved back to Vancouver, and I’m not ready to admit that, and B- I won’t get the thrill of having everyone in my bikram yoga class give me dirty looks because I’m using a disposable water bottle, instead of a reusable one.



4. Reusable shopping bag: Vancouverites like to think they are super environmental, and I am very pleased that I use cotton bags when I grocery shop. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, this is a town where people buy gas guzzling SUVs to drive from their middle class neighbourhoods, 20 blocks east to the mall and then home. Oh yeah, they also drive 15 minutes to get to an area where they are going to go running for an hour. And the best part is, everyone is coming from the same neighbourhood, driving to the same running path, running together, and driving back again. In seperate cars. I am not exactly the most environmentally conscious person in the world, so I won’t criticize that sort of behaviour, but please don’t tell me you are environmental Vancouver, because you aren’t.

Ok, I am being critical, but what’s the solution. Well, if I was going to make a little display of things I love about Vancouver, here is what I would put in there. This is what the Vancouver area means to me.

1. Some aboriginal clothing, like these amazing moccasin boots, which I spotted on one of my students. They are made from local moose leather and rabbit fur, and cost less than $200!!!!
   
2. Smoked salmon: yum. It is bloody good here. Get it in a nicely painted box too. Image source.



3. BC bud: There is no denying that this is what Vancouver is famous for, even Tommy Lee was talking about it on stage Sunday night at GM Place. Of course I don’t endorse this sort of thing, but I have HEARD its really good. Here’s a picture of the Olympic torch, which is said to resemble a joint. Was that an accident, or a reflection of the culture here in Vancouver? Image source.



4. California rolls: Vancouver’s local dish is sushi. Ask anyone. And we do it super well. Tojo’s has been named the best Japanese restaurant in the world, outside of Japan. In the world!



5. A Douglas Coupland Book. We are proud of him!



6. Some local artwork. Something totally unappreciated by Vancouverites, so get it while it isn’t too expensive. Here are two of my favourites, Roselina Hung (top) and Dougal Graham (bottom.)



7. A tree. Can you sell small ones? I guess tourists can’t bring it home on the plane, so experience a tree. See a really big one on the way to Tofino, sit on a log on English bay beach, hike through them in Squamish, or burn some in a campfire on long beach. Be sure to bring a dog along.



8. Vintage clothes. The secret is, everyone here is two years behind the rest of the world when it comes to fashion, so they vintage stores are full of good stuff because the Vancouver people haven’t figured out its cool yet. Image of True Value Vintage, source.

I haven’t had the opportunity to do much diamond shopping, not because I don’t want to , but because I have a strict diamond policy with my husband. He isn’t allowed to buy me a diamond unless it is from a brand that has a store on the Place Vendome. (this is a very fancy shopping are in Paris.) I’d rather wait 20 years so he can afford a proper Van Cleef and Arpels, than settle for Freddy Diamond. So we don’t do much diamond shopping, but if I were to go diamond shopping, I can tell you right now I wouldn’t go here.

In fact, who shops here at all? I complain quite a bit about the visual merchandising in Vancouver, but this is something else. I think the picture says it all.

(by the way, this store is on Robson street, Vancouver’s most popular shopping street.)

The Isabel Marant Otway Boot. Image from Wall Street Journal by Getty Images.

There has been a lot in the fashion press recently about the french designer brand Isabel Marant, who has until very recently banned any images of her products on the web. Of course, no one can totally ban how images and information about them online, however Marant has been very careful in controlling online exposure of her brand.

A quote from this article from the Wall Street Journal sums up her philosophy quite well:

“A major part of the brand’s allure is its rarity. Until this season, when Isabel Marant accessories were sold at luxury emporium Barneys New York, Ms. Marant’s goods could only be found at a handful of small boutiques in the U.S. Because the brand carefully limits orders, products rarely go on sale.

In addition, Ms. Marant forbids retailers to sell her products online, or even post images of them. Revealing prices online is also against the rules. Instead, stores often note on their Web sites that they have Ms. Marant’s items in stock and list a phone number where customers can pre-order the goods, sight-unseen.

Chief executive Sophie Duruflé says … that the brand ‘never entered e-commerce since that really wasn’t our profession.’”

But soon the brand will be available on Net A Porter, and has recently started being sold at Barneys, so it is beginning to increase its exposure and availability.

Isabel Marant Spring Summer 2010

Personally, it sounds ridiculous to me, although I am wondering if this is just a press tactic to get the exposure of the brand up so that when it is available online, it will sell like crazy. For any CEO of a fashion company to say “e-commerce is not our business” is like a magazine saying “we don’t need a presence online.” The WSJ article went on to report that

Ms. Borissova (owner of Curve in New York), who ordered 28 pairs of the Soono (boot), says that the company only delivered three pairs. She flew to Paris to plead with the designer to produce more. The brand resisted, but after she committed to a €50,000 (about $70,000) order, the company agreed to recreate the $1,300 boot.

Now, that just sounds crazy to me, as I know that retailers do not often beg to have their orders filled. Usually it is the other way around, and the experiences I have had in the past is that if you are a brand that only delivers 3 pieces of a 28 piece order, you’ll never get another order again. So what is going on here? The Isabel Marant collection is great, in fact, beautiful, but not SO great that it merits buyers flying around begging for orders to be filled. Are we just so in shock that there is a brand out there NOT jumping on the internet/online/social media bandwagon that we are fascinated and therefore obsessively buying?

Isabel Marant Autumn Winter 2009/2010: Mila Jovovich photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin

I think it sounds like Isabel Marant is making life difficult for her stockists and her customers (according to WSJ, one London customer called her store to try and order a boot, and she was told she needed to come to Paris to get it) and therefore will need to drastically change her policy very soon. If not, I highly doubt her “difficult attitude” will be alluring for much longer. Many products or brands are very difficult to get ahold of in the early stages, and that definitely helps to create the hype, but it doesn’t last long (you don’t see people fighting over Ugg boots anymore, do you?)

Isabel Marant Spring Summer 09: Daria Werbowy photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin

I completely respect that a brand wants to try and control their image online, but there are other ways of doing it. Peachoo + Krejberg don’t have a website, however, that hasn’t stopped them from selling at Holt Renfrew and other major stores, because they understand that sales keep you in business (and they deliver their orders in full too!) I don’t know how long this will go on, but Isabel Marant is soon opening a store in New York. Its one thing selling out in some major boutiques, but to generate enough sales to keep a store open in NYC, without any real online presence, is going to be very challenging. And buyers, as well as customers, will get bored of the the battle to get the product (regardless of how pretty it is), and will move on to the next brand.

How hard are you willing to fight for a pair of boots? I have gone to great lengths for a pair of shoes before, in fact, several times, but I didn’t have to leave the country to find them. And there’s a difference between waiting two years to get a Birkin Bag (which is an investment piece that will barely decrease in value), and embarking on a mission to get a pair of suede boots by a small French designer.

Catwalk images from Style.com and campigan images from the Isabel Marant website.

I had brunch today with the Vancouver/London girls, girls from Vancouver living in London and home for the holidays. It is good to hear that I am not missing much across the pond.

We had brunch in Sophie’s Cosmic Cafe, which is a really fun place I have been going to for years. We then took a walk up 4th, which included my first visit into a Lululemon store since I moved back and I think my second visit to a Lululemon store ever. Lululemon are great for yoga clothing, but I don’t like that Vancouverites have taken to wearing it as street clothes.

Our main shopping destination after brunch was Gravity Pope, which is supposed to be Vancouver’s best shoe store. They also have a clothing store next door. This was another example of the terrible visual merchandising you see in Vancouver. I walked into both stores, saw tons of stock, with no consideration to visual merchandising, and a sea of browns and neutral colours crammed together. Under normal circumstances I would have thought “crap” and walked straight out. But since these are supposed to be “amazing” stores, I looked around.

Gravity Pope’s clothing store does in fact have AMAZING stock. I was ecstatic at the number of cool brand that they carry, including Peter Jensen, Acne, Paul Smith, Nudie Jeans, and Cheap Monday. The selection was great, some really fun pieces, mixed in with edgy classics, tons to choose from. But presented in a way that give absolutely no value to the clothing, makes it look drab and boring. All the rails look the same, brands had no clear differentiation, and there didn’t seem to be any real attempt at merchandising the stock.

I know my pictures aren’t great (its hard to take sneaky photos from your Blackberry) but I am sure you will agree that the selection looks BORING. And its not, in fact, its the best selection of clothing I have seen in this city. So why use all the same rails…all the same hight…with no inspiring displays…

The shoe store was exactly the same thing (I know it was sale, so I’m not criticising the sale racks, as everyone has sale racks.) Their regular priced shoes were all crammed onto low shelving in the middle of store, giving nothing any value. The average shoe price there isn’t low, lots of shoes around $400-$700, which is fine to pay for a good pair of shoes, but not when they are displayed like this.

Great shoes, terrible displays.

I don’t understand what is going on in Vancouver. How can all these retailers be so clueless about merchandising? I am sure that the buyer from Gravity Pope, and many other great Vancouver shops travel to Europe for their buying trips. While they are there, don’t they visit other stores, for inspiration? Can’t they see that in London and Paris and New York and Stockholm and Amsterdam and Shanghai and in all the great cities, luxury boutiques display their product in beautiful ways? You certainly won’t see stores that cram fifty pairs of expensive shoes on one shelf, and a rail crammed with so much amazing clothing its a struggle to pull something out to have a look…This is wrong!

and by the way, what’s with the name Gravity Pope? What does it mean?

I have been meaning to comment on this for some time, but I have quite a big pile of blog drafts piling up, which I am hoping to clear by the end of the holidays.

So, Martin Margiela has left the house he founded. Maison Martin Margiela was founded in 1988, and since 2002 it has been majority owned by Diesel, the Italian group which also owns Viktor & Rolf, and of course the denim brand Diesel. I won’t go on too much about the history and the acquisition, and if you are interested you can read all about it in this great article from the New York Times, but I will say that in the time that Diesel took part ownership of Maison Martin Margiela, their sales went from €15 million to €70 million.

Maison Martin Margiela has been quite an important brand for me, particularly when I am lecturing to fashion students (one of my many fashion-related jobs.) This was the brand that helped me define the level of my students. If they all knew the brand, I knew it was going to be a good group. If 30% knew the brand, I knew there would be a few strong ones leading the rest. If 10% or less had heard of Margiela, I knew I was in trouble.

Anyway, I am sure not all of my readers are familiar with Maison Martin Margiela, so I am going to do a little facts list. It is by no means exhaustive, I am going by memory (so feel free to correct any mistakes people) and I am not a Margiela expert, but here we go.

FACT 1: He is from Belgium, and considered to be the “seventh” member of the Antwerp Six. The Antwerp Six were six Belgium fashion designers that graduated from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts (a super prestigious fashion design school) in the 80s, and then proceeded to drive to London in a van to show off their wares. That was their big breakthrough.  The Antwerp Six is Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee. Thanks to them, and Margiela, the Belgian fashion designers got a reputation for being quite avant-garde, a reputation they still have.

Some cool Maison Martin Margiela sandal boots.

Toys by Maison Martin Margiela. They love white.

FACT 2: No one sees him. He doesn’t do personal appearances, and he never meets journalists. Even Carine Roitfeld, editor of French Vogue, has never seen him. I thought it was very funny the other day when someone said that he was spotted looking for a house in West Hollywood. That would imply someone has seen him…

Some menswear. I sort of imagine he looks something like the guy in the centre.

FACT 3: He never referred to himself as “I”. It was always “Maison Martin Margiela is doing this…” or “We are doing this…” instead of “I am doing this…”

This was a really famous Aids t-shirt they did. The text was printed straight onto the shirt, so some was on the front, and some was on the inside of the back.

The Aids t-shirt hanging.

FACT 4: His clothes don’t have the brand name on the label, and his shops don’t have the name on the outside (aside from the one in LA.)

Maison Martin Margiela clothing label.

The Hong Kong store.

The Paris store.

The sign above the London store.

FACT 5: He is known for recycling garments.

An outfit made from lots of old pairs of jeans.

FACT 6: He only communicates by fax (although I am not sure if this is still the case, since hardly anyone has a fax machine anymore. Except for my Mom.)

Another couture outfit.

FACT 7: His fashion shows involve a running commentary about the clothing, and all of his staff wear white lab coats.

One of the staff showing a men's vest.

FACT 8: He often costs his garments based on the number of hours spent making them. Which makes a €5000 jacket actually seem reasonably priced. It is really interesting to see the time involved in making a couture garment. Yes, it is expensive, but at least you know that it is because the garment actually takes a lot of time to make.

This picture came from Diane Pernet's A Shaded View On Fashion (another one of my favorite blogs.) She included the following caption: "Travel Jacket: 53 hours to construct/5330 Euros The jacket is cut from a zipped nylon travel garment bag. What I loved was the breakdown: 'The hours of work necessary for the creation in question includes: the preparation, the finishing and the quality control but exclude the research of raw material, technical control, necessary treatment (cleaning, softening, dying, etc.) and the fittings. Travel Jacket - February. ' "

Here are a few more of his garments.

Great Shoulders.

The famous wig jacket.

Some of the store's shelving.

And look at how cool his landing page is.

Anyway, he has left the company, and Renzo Rosso, the creator of Diesel, has decided not to replace him. Apparently the creative team of 20 something people are strong enough to continue designing without the need of a creative director. This is a very interesting move, and I think it is the right idea.

Replacing a Creative Director, especially the founder of the brand, is very difficult. There have been a lot of problems with Gianfranco Ferre, Emanuel Ungaro, and Versace, all of which have suffered as brands since their namesake founder has left. There has been a lot of speculation in the news lately about what will happen with Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, and Oscar de la Renta, because they all have creative directors in their seventies. Chanel has been quoted as saying “Karl Lagerfeld is the creative director of Chanel and enjoys a long-term contract which is absolutely not put into question. His succession is not on the agenda,” but that is just not credible, they must have some sort of plan in place, because lets face it, at 76, chances are he won’t be able to continue in his role for much longer. I won’t even begin to express the fear in my heart about the succession of Karl Lagerfeld, there is simply no one who can replace him.

With regards to Maison Martin Margiela, we can now only wait to see what happens. Critics have complained that the collections have been lacking for several seasons, apparently since he unofficially left the brand. But I agree that a replacement may only make things worse. I also believe that if this does work, Renzo Rosso will be setting a precedent, and many others will follow. If you can’t replace a great Creative Director, then don’t.

Sorry to anyone whose photo I didn’t credit. Most images came from www.martinmargiela.com and www.style.com but if I used your image without proper credit, please get in touch and I will remove it or credit it.