The Shophound

The Shophound On The Road: A Discovery Expedition To L.L.Bean

A couple of weeks ago, we got around to visiting Fjällräven, the Swedish expedition experts who have arrived in NoLita, which it got us to thinking about how it was basically a smaller, imported version of L.L.Bean, the venerable and beloved Maine outfitters.
As we found ourselves looking for a new pair of snow boots for what promises to be a stormy winter, our thoughts turned to the original New England institution itself. Since we happened to be out of town for the weekend and close to one of its few branch retail shops (There are now 13 outside the original Maine flagship, mostly located on the Northern part of the Eastern Seaboard), we decided that rather than order over the internet as most of their customers are likely to do these days, we would take advantage of the opportunity to buy them in person. As it happens, one of the first freestanding L.L.Bean stores opened a few years ago in Tysons Corner, Virginia, the suburban DC shopping mecca which, between its two immense malls, is home to just about any chain store you can name, including two (!) Macy's.
Has L.L.Bean sacrificed its staunch Northeastern character to fit in at the mall? Thankfully, no. It is still paradoxically devoid of fashion yet bursting with style, and it may now be one of our very favorite stores.
Maybe it's nostalgia for our preppy youth, but there's something reassuring about that nearly century-old brand. Our new Bean Boots insulated with Thinsulate and Gore-Tex have promised to keep our feet dry and toasty throughout the snowstorms we are expecting in the next couple of months, which is a lot more than we could say about the clunky, old Timberlands we are discarding. It doesn't hurt that rugged, outdoorsy style has been undergoing a resurgence lately, but Bean has been making a variation of these boots for about 98 years. We are now hoping for a blizzard.
As for the rest of the store's apparel offerings, it's true, there is no shortage of Mom Jeans there, but high fashion and trends has never been what they are about. Bean's down jackets, an awfully respectable alternative to The North Face and Patagonia, start at a whopping $69. Pleasant surprises pop up all over the place. The classic, handsewn Blucher Mocs which never go on sale on line were 35% off here (and remain at full price on the website). A stack of Scotch plaid shirts retailing for just under $30 each is made from a buttery soft brushed Portuguese flannel. They are more than a bargain when the hipster stores of Brooklyn have been pushing designer flannels for over $200. Not the same thing as Engineered Garments or the newly rejuvenated Woolrich and Pendleton? Well, of course not, but any stylish person knows the value of mixing in the high with the low, and if you have been having trouble pulling together this winter's pervasive lumberjack/longshoreman look within your budget (join the club), there are a lot of pleasingly affordable alternatives at L.L.Bean to pair with those pants you got at Odin a couple of months ago.

More After The Jump

The Shophound In Los Angeles: West Coast Wrap-Up

So we're back in a chilly, damp New York today, but our jet lagged mind is still in California so we're just going to finish up our little travelogue before we get back to our usual local posting. We might have written more along the way, but, hey, we were on vacation.<
As much as we appreciate the shiny glitz on Melrose, we found our favorite shops in Silverlake, where the national chains have yet to invade.
At the top of our list is the year-old boutique CONFEDERACY (pictured above). Being co-owned by "That 70's Show" star Danny Masterson would typically not be such a good sign for a fashion snob like The Shophound, but this is no TV star's side project. It's a serious store that offers at least one thing you won't find so easily in New York: space. The shop sprawls through several expansive rooms with women's in front featuring Proenza Schouler, Vena Cava and other young minded designers and Men's in the back where we were treated to the launch of an exclusive suit collection designed by Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes. If you can fit your slender frame into these immaculately tailored clothes, then it's worth a trip to LA just to pick one up for yourself. Extra fashion cred is provided by Masterson's business partner, stylist Ilaria Urbinati, and if the labels in the store might seem familiar, it's the distinctive mix that makes Confederacy a must on anyone's LA shopping tour. • 4661 Hollywood Boulevard, Silverlake
Our other favorite find was REFORM SCHOOL, featuring handcrafted and independently produced items of all sorts from clothes to jewelry to toys TO artwork. Prices range from occasionally extravagant to extremely affordable, and he place would be our number one go-to gift shop if we lived on the other coast. • 3902 W. Sunset Boulevard, Silverlake
A few doors down Sunset, we stumbled upon DEAN, which takes your typical downtown leathergoods shop and injects a healthy dose of color and design to lift it out of its hippie haze. We found great bags and accessories in those familiar sturdy hides including an exceptional collection of belts and watches with handcrafted bands. • 3918 W. Sunset Boulevard, Silverlake
We still managed to hit a few famous LA stores that we had never seen in person. We had always thought that AMERICAN RAG C^ie was just a big jeans and vintage store, but we weren't quite prepared for its breadth. One table might be piled with G-Star sportswear while the rack is hung with the latest Balmain and Rick Owens leathers. It's the sort of random mixing that had become familiar to us in LA, but American Rag also houses the mother of all denim shops, the World Denim Bar, whose exhaustive stock puts some of New York's so-called denim specialists (ahem, Atrium) to shame. On the other side, there's Maison-Midi, the company's new home division. • 150 S. LaBrea Avenue, West Hollywood
Is UNDEFEATED the LA's best sneaker store? You'd have to ask a real Angeleno for the definitive answer, but we were pretty impressed when we found them in Santa Monica. They have a carefully curated selection of kicks including some covetable, exclusive Adidas. Of their six locations, two are in Japan, which should give you some idea of their expertise. • 2654-B Main Street, Santa Monica and other locations
We were mostly uninterested in visiting any store we could find at home (and there are lots of them now) with a few exceptions like Paul Smith and the new OPENING CEREMONY we have heard so much about. It has the same elements as the original, but in a new mix with a few extras. In a building that once housed Charlie Chaplin's dance studio, there's more room, of course, divided into a series of interlocking rooms. Sadly, they were sold out of "Where The Wild Things Are" Max costumes, but we actually found the LA set-up to be easier to shop than the SoHo store which can sometimes seem a little claustrophobic. Upstairs, things are divided into designer shops not unlike the old 57^th Street Bendel's including a special room devoted to Alexander Wang. Our LA friends were enthralled by the place, and so were we. • 451 North La Cienega Boulevard, West Hollywood

The Shpophound In Los Angeles: Record Stores...Remember Those?

Please see pictured above an endangered species. A rare, surviving music store.
We've only lost our Virgin Megastores for a little while, but we already feel a bit of jealous nostalgia at Amoeba Music on Sunset and Ivar. It's no sleek CD palace. In fact, it's like a little independent record store on steroids with poster and flyer lined walls and a little stage for personal appearances and performances, but it looks like the only place to find any sort of marginally specialized music genre as well as used CDs and vinyl, which we are told is making a big comeback. Amoeba is an independent chain with three stores in Hollywood, San Francisco and Berkeley. Maybe they'd like to come East?
Amoeba Music 6400 Sunset Boulevard at Ivar Avenue, Hollywood

The Shophound In Los Angeles: Meandering Down Melrose At Maxfield, Fred Segal & More

So we're here in Los Angeles on vacation, but The Shophound is never really on vacation when there are bunches of stores around and we are in a strange new town. The last time we were in L.A. was about 10 years a go, and while some things have changed, a few things are the same. Drop us in the middle of West Hollywood, and we'll find our way to Ron Herman at Fred Segal by sheer instinct. We have a pair of Maharishi pants to remind us of the last time we were there, but how has the place held up after a decade?
We may not have caught the store at the best time, since they were going into their final clearance phase with a sidewalk sale and 50% off whatever was left, and 75% if you bought three pieces. Sale racks aside, we found the place to be mostly in its familiar mode of mixing sporty contemporary sportswear lines and denim downstairs with the more exclusive designer labels upstairs. The store still has a stellar lineup of labels (Margiela, Dries, Alexander Wang etc.), but many of the racks looked disturbingly sparse in places. Either they have already sold out of the best things, or their inventory was so tight that there just wasn't enough merchandise to properly fill the place up. It may well be a bit of both. The economy has hit L.A., and the extended writers' strike that preceded gave it a head start. There are lots of empty storefronts on Melrose.
If the goal of our shopping in L.A. is to find something we haven't seen in New York, Ron Herman succeeded with a selection of Comme des Garçons' Dover Street Market labeled sportswear and very California-ish limited edition line from Quiksilver among other things. If New York is stuck in a dark '80s revival rut, then L.A. stores give the look it a glossy West Coast sheen. Where they failed was when they let us wander through the store for 10, 20, then 30 minutes without once being approached or acknowledged in any way.
One thing that struck us about L.A. was how many more New York stores have opened West Coast outposts since our last visit. So why would we want to visit Paul Smith here when he has two perfectly good shops in Manhattan? Well, for starters, it's hard to resist that great big pink box on Melrose, and once inside, the cavernous space offers a pleasingly different experience cleverly tailored to its locale despite having essentially the same stuff we see at home. All that extra space, it turns out, makes a world of difference.
Of course there are also a few California based brands that have their own boutiques here, and its no surprise that a sporty label like Ever looks all the more appealing in its native environment.
It was further down Melrose, however where we found our first true shopping highlight. Cintra Wilson prepped us a few weeks ago in the Thursday Styles for our visit to Maxfield, one of L.A.'s signature stores. If any store can define the West Coast's peculiar blend of casual extravagance, it's this one. What can we say about a store that can successfully display shrunken heads and giant vintage Hermès Birkin bags within a few feet of each other? Plenty, aside from the fact that we were graciously welcomed into the store (are you listening Ron Herman?) and encouraged to peruse the place to our hearts content. Despite the shop's unmistakable California sense of style, there's lots there for any New Yorker to love, including lots and lots of black clothes. While the emphasis is on the progressive (Rick Owens, Balmain, Number (N)ine) there's enough Chanel to keep the slightly less adventurous quite happy. Of course, it's true that Maxfield is not for the limited of funds, but browsing is free and pretty easy.
Coming up: Silverlake and beyond.
Ron Herman at Fred Segal 8100 Melrose Avenue
Paul Smith 8221 Melrose Avenue
Ever  8251 Melrose Avenue
Maxfield 8825 Melrose Avenue, all in West Hollywood

The Shophound In Los Angeles: Is There Something We Don't Know About Johnny Cupcakes?

SO WE'RE HERE IN LOS ANGELES for the first time in more years than we'd care to say, taking a slightly early morning walk down Melrose (lot of empty storefronts, sadly) on our way to Ron Herman at Fred Segal (more on that later), and we see a bunch of people camping out in front of some closed storefronts at around 10:30 AM. We're used to seeing this sort of thing in front of A Bathing Ape in Soho, but LA's Bape is half a block away, and there's no line there. We learn that this camp-out is in anticipation of cult t-shirt maker Johnny Cupcakes' release of limited edition Halloween t-shirts tonight at 9 PM.
Johnny who?
You may recall that a few years a go, in the early days of The Shophound, while casting about for some links on a stormy day, we discovered the young brand, and frankly, that's the last time we though about it —until now. Apparently, the bakery-inspired tee designer has become quite the underground sensation since then, and now has two exclusive shops —the other's in Boston— which, aside from the brand's website, are the only place to get the now highly coveted brand.
We thought we were pretty well versed in such things, but, you see, this is why sometimes we have to leave town (even our own fabulous town) to discover new stuff. For those of you East Coasters, the event will be repeated tomorrow October 10th at the Boston Store, so you should literally get in line now if you are so inclined. Apparently, it's quite the scene.
Johnny Cupcakes 7959 Melrose Ave, West, Hollywood
Previously:
Linkage For The Shut-In (6.7.06)

Back From A Break

The Shophound is back from a few days off.
Who's going to say no to a few quiet days in The Hamptons? Not us, that's for sure.
We haven't really been out there much, and we had thought that we might have a chance to do a little shopping and report back to you about all the fabulous shops. We realized as we walked along Main Street and Jobs Lane, however, that most of the stores are just smaller branches of what we have in Manhattan (Theory, J.Crew, Saks, etc.), and while they are perfectly fine, they're not even on sale yet, so we didn't really feel that we were missing too much by lolling on the beach and floating in the pool for a couple of days.
After all, what's a vacation for, anyway?

Too Much Sun

The Shophound has to apologize for the light posting, but we're having a short midweek break to nurse our Hamptons sunburn.
Did that sound like bragging or gloating?
Aw...Sorry.

Shophound Previews: American Eagle Hatches Martin + Osa

Another Family Holiday, another trip to the mall. Regular Shophounders may have noticed that while New York City is our usual stomping ground, we do like the occasional detour to the mall. That mall is often Tyson's Corner Center in in McLean Virginia, just outside of Washington DC, and one of the reasons we like it is because invariably we will find something new that has yet to make it to New York. Sometimes it's a promising concept (Cusp) or other times it's an uninspired expansion vehicle that adds nothing to the retail scene but looks poised to make lots of cash anyway (Ruehl). This time we were in search of Martin + Osa, a new store concept from American Eagle Outfitters. Frankly, we suspected that it would fall into the latter, uninspired category. After all, American Eagle has a sort of "Abercrombie knock-off" reputation, so we were wondering how an offshoot could possibly express any more originality that the mother ship. Well, nobody is happier to be pleasantly surprised than The Shophound. We loved Martin + Osa. It's the anti-Ruehl. Four locations around the country are up and running, including Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco and Newport Beach California in addition to Tyson's, and we can't wait for one to open in Manhattan.

The Times Goes To the Mall

On Wednesday, The New York Times sent Michael Barbaro to one of our hometown malls, Tyson's Corner Center, to investigate the latest phenomenon in retail store design, lots of style, but no windows. We went there to tell you about Ruehl and Cusp. Barbaro focuses on branches from our old friends Abercrombie & Fitch, and its spawn, Ruehl and Hollister as well as Martin & Osa, a new division of American Eagle that we will check out soon. Unlike most mall store's plate glass fronts, these façades are so architecturally heavy that they completely obscure what is for sale inside, and in the case of Ruehl, easily mislead customers.

Marc Caudill, who is 50 and a conservative dresser, stopped into the Ruehl at a mall in suburban Virginia recently looking for clothes and was overwhelmed by loud, pulsating music, a staff of skimpily dressed teenagers and stacks of T-shirts that read “Friday is casual sex day.”
A helpful employee told him the store was for college students and pointed him to the door. “The problem,” said Mr. Caudill, standing outside the store, “is that you really had to guess what it was until you got in.”

Welcome to the warm, gracious embrace of Ruehl, Marc. We love Abercrombie's response even better.

Hide and Seek in Georgetown: Relish Thrives in Cady's Alley

You may have noticed that The Shophound is out of town, but we're making the most of our trip because wherever you are, you can always shop. Shopping in Washington lately has started to feel more and more like shopping in New York when a walk in Georgetown finds us passing Intermix, Dean & DeLuca and any number of chain stores replicated in both cities. Even Ralph Lauren has taken the original site of Britches of Georgetowne, one of the first stores to carry his label. Further uptown, Wisconsin Avenue is starting to look like Madison as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Barney's Co-op and Bulgari have quickly settled in, and Hecht's, the last of DC's hometown department stores is set to be absorbed into Macy's in a matter of weeks. A little hunting around Georgetown finds relief from the growing homogeneity in the form of Relish, a boutique that has been growing for more than a decade into a world class destination, which is good because the expansive store is hidden in Cady's Alley, a recently revived walkway just below M Street that would be easily missed in a cursory survey of  the neighborhood.

More after the jump