Blog

Invariably, every time we think we've seen every fashion related site worth seeing, a new one pops up on our screens. That's basically how we stumbled upon Milkshake Chocolate. The site is a seasonal zine in the tradition of zines that were popular on the web way back in the 1990s. Deliciously handmade and devoid of any kind blogging or content management system, each issue covers the more creative side of fashion by way of fun pictorials and interviews with a bevy of talented fashion and accessories designers.

A good place to start: their interview with Ines Kaag and Desiree Heiss of Bless, or their interview with up and coming British design duo Poltock & Walsh.

We were checking up on Slow and Steady Wins the Race's website a few days ago when we came about this little tidbit about their next collection:

No 20 Rainwear
This installment is the first collaboration between Slow and Steady Wins the Race and the wonderful store Stand-Up Comedy in Portland. It is a simple catalogue of rainwear staples inspired by Portland’s rainy weather: trenchcoats, ponchos, rainboots, rain caps, umbrellas and an ultimate cargo backpack carryall. Waterproof materials, local production and a celebration of Portland’s dedication to green fashion and nature will be additional highlights to this special design collaboration.

While we're not eager for the upcoming rainy season, we can't wait to see what they come up with. Naturally we'll post here as soon as more info/pictures are available.

A 90 second diversion: 2046 Shoes in Barcelona posted a quick tour of the shop on their site.

We all know Karl Lagerfeld the spectacle, jetting around the fashion world in fingerless gloves and stiff-collared shirts. But we have now seen 3 distinctively different perspectives of Lagerfeld and thought you might be interested them as well.

Well over a year ago, Charlie Rose did an hour long interview with Lagerfeld. Quote of the hour, when asked about "bridge" lines many designers are doing. "Bridges are for dentists."

A few months ago we were lead to a 5 episode documentary that was done on the design and creation of one Chanel haute couture collection. Fun fact: when Lagerfeld enters the Chanel headquarters the receptionists promptly call and announce his arrival to just about everyone else in the building. (Click here for a listing of all the videos.)

And finally, we have the just released documentary Lagerfeld Confidential, the first authorized biography on Lagerfeld, directed by young director Rodolphe Marconi. The film is currently playing at Film Forum in New York through November 6 and will likely be making its way through the art house theater circuit later on. This is the most candid of Kaiser Karl's appearances, where he talks everything including from his mother to his ability to cut people out of his life after knowing them for decades. One of several choice quotes from the film: "I don't want to be a reality in people's life. I want to be like an apparition." On that count at least, we'd say mission accomplished.

The sixth issue of Fantastic Man has a lot of great design in it, but the best piece of design is probably their own table of contents.

If you're as intrigued with the Surface to Air collective as we are, you'll be interested to know the New York arm of the multi-continent endeavor, home to the Surface to Air Black Label T-shirt line and the Estuay women's and men's clothing line, has a proper website now at http://surfacetoairnewyork.com.

The site details the various art direction and product design work the collective has done and apparently an online store is coming soon.

In case you hadn't heard, A.P.C. finally opened its Los Angeles location over the weekend. Pictures of the space and opening party are available at founder Jean Touitou's blog.

It wasn't too long ago when we featured pictures from Henrik Vibskov's Fall 2007 "Black Carrots" collection. Something we inexplicably missed at the time was the video from the Black Carrots show. Stop building your spreadsheet, put away the memo you're writing, and watch the 8 minute video. Operatic chanting sets the tone for a show that features sharply dressed but otherwise poverty-stricken hipsters fondling black carrots and glass orbs--certainly the strangest and most entertaining presentation we've seen in quite some time. Online at Henrik Vibskov's site (news section).

So this is only peripherally related to shopping, but we had to share. Pearce was a gorgeous shop/gallery in Venice that sold the furniture and sculpture of Alma Allen. The store closed a while back and owners Alma Allen and Nancy Pearce moved to Joshua Tree to build a house/studio. The building/planning process along with anecdotes about high desert living is being cataloged on their site.

Which brings us to the funny part. The site also has the audio of a ridiculous errant message left on Ms. Pearce's cellphone a while back. Follow this link (.mov movie file of message accompanied with desert illustrations) and thank us later.

We were reading the latest JC Report today when something struck us as a bit curious. In their Pacific Cheer LA gift guide the writer, Ilaria Urbinati, spends the last paragraph talking about LA store Milk, more specifically about the store's online shop Shopatmilk.com, calling it a "best bet."

So shouldn't it say somewhere in the article that Ms. Urbinati is in fact the buyer for Milk as it's a conflict of interest? We're just sayin'.

We imagine you guys have been following the spring fashion shows a few weeks ago as closely as us. But some juicy pieces of content we'd been skipping out on were the podcasts Style.com has been doing of the various shows. Thanks to a reader tip we watched the Hussein Chalayan show clip and urge everyone else to as well. If you want to see how fashion, art and technology can meld together seamlessly and beautifully, Hussein Chalayan will show you how.

It seems like every week we hear about another brick and mortar store that decides to try its luck on the internet. And we're thrilled. For the few billion people that don't live in New York, LA or a few other major cities, it's an opportunity to get designers that they simply don't have easy access to. For small retailers it's yet another way to solidify and expand their business, to turn inventory quicker and to possibly get some press attention from non-local outlets.

But about 1/3 of the time, we look at a new online shopping site for an existing store and just shake our heads. Somewhere, someone along the way gave the shop owners bad advice and they're stuck with a (no doubt expensive) website that won't help their business or their customers.

So, as visitors of thousands of e-commerce sites and shoppers at over a hundred, we've decided to write this whirlwind guide to the rough and tumble, live on razor's edge world of e-commerce. Here goes nothing.

Via Notcot, Style.com has put up a behind-the-scenes video of a Annie Leibovitz shoot at Versailles for Vogue. Besides using clothes from the upcoming Marie Antoinette movie, Kristen Dunst wears huge gowns by Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Alexandar McQueen and others. It's definitely worth a look. We like the McQueen gown the best.

This came into our mailbox yesterday and even though it's been around for a while we just couldn't not post it. The "Buildings of Disaster" series is a line of "souvenirs" commemorating buildings that have met, what else, disaster. There's some pretty serious stuff there like the Pentagon and the Oklahoma City Federal Building, but a different kind of disaster got our attention. Everyone that was in LA in 1994 will never forget the 2 surreal hours that captivated the Southland--the OJ Simpson car chase. The Buildings of Disaster line immortalizes this infamous chase in nickel. We're not sure who would want this on their desk, but hey it did get our attention.

Traveling about North America, we noticed more than one independently owned brick-and-mortar store doing brisk business online. Our observation has been that if you have truly unique products to sell (and not the same "hot" brand of jeans on sale 500 other places online), you can slice yourself a nice piece of the online pie. But retailers are funny. Some will jump online from day one, some will be dragged in after years of requests, some will just ignore the whole online thing as a particularly stubborn fad. But what we've found interesting is retailers from different cities deal rather differently with online shopping. Let's start with some statistics.

We took the number of brick-and-mortar stores in our top cities and calculated the percentage of these stores that are online. The results are a little skewed in some places but they're fairly representative. Take a look:

• Austin: 7/28 = 25%
• Boston: 12/33 = 36.36%
• Los Angeles: 33/129 = 25.58%
• New York: 68/179 = 37.99%
• San Francisco: 43/104 = 41.35%
• Seattle: 28/87 = 32.18%
• Toronto: 10/63 = 15.87%
• Washington: 14/41 = 34.15%

San Francisco has the highest percentage which isn't surprising but actually this result is the most suspect. Our data is skewed by the 7 Rasputin locations in the area. As a whole San Francisco retailers, especially the clothing stores, are somewhat behind in jumping online. Especially considering the 8 million tech companies in the area.

Next is New York. Not surprisingly, we've found New York's small retailers to be the most saavy retailers around. It seems like every store in New York has PR representation. When we've approached stores to do some kind of article or interview, New York retailers have consistently been the most receptive and welcoming. And not surpisingly New York retailers have realized the value of online shopping and have jumped in.

And now we move to Canada, or Toronto to be exact. It seems like Canada is thinking "Online Shopping? More American trickery!" or something like that. A big city like Toronto and only 15.87% have online shopping. Worse yet, the stores that do have websites are often shoddy and haven't been touched in years. Come on Toronto retailers, if Magic Pony can do it, so can you.

We'll be updating these here statistics as we add more stores and cities to the list, but here's a quick tidbit. The most impressive online retailing of any city in North America is actually not New York, but Chicago. It seems like any cool store we run into from Chicago has a thriving online operation. We'll be talking about a few of these stores in the days and weeks to come.