NYC Blog: Men's Fashion, Retail and Visual Merchandising | The Bespoken: For Gentlemen

Thou Shalt Not Return Christmas Gifts

 

The truth comes out…

It is an age-old tradition that the day after Christmas, despite our feigned exhaustion, we, who have convincingly and sincerely thanked friends and family for their thoughtfulness, generosity and  well-chosen gifts, head out to the malls to return them all. We are all phonies! Has Christmas become an exercise in futility, or just plain selfishness?

It’s not a modern dilemma. I imagine that in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago Mary and Joseph packed up their baby to head downtown to return all that frankincense and myrrh on the 26th. After all, how much myrrh does a carpenter’s wife really need? Joseph needed a new tool belt and ratchet set. The Bible tells us that Bethlehem was packed with people in town to report for the local census. It was probably a boon to the salespeople in the bazaars. Things may have been so packed that the Holy family had to find lodging elsewhere. Luckily, they were not in New York City. With the Euro so tight, tourists were everywhere (except home) like bedbugs. Note to expectant parents, the only Inn there is room at, is the Holiday Inn on West 57^th. The revolving door at Macys made it clear that despite being open twenty-four hours straight for three days that there was no room there. Next time you need to swaddle, try Pret A Manger in Rockefeller Center.

I did not return anything, but I did receive a 50.00 VISA gift card that was applied to JC Penny’s, where I purchased a set of six white washcloths marked down to 5.99, a bargain! With the remainder I bought two fitted shirts at Express, marked 40% off from the original 59.99.

I was on a quest to find an electric blanket. Macy’s had electric blankets, which were being sold for 149.99 (same deal at JC Penny’s), but I am not a rube, or a tourist from Turkey. I found the same electric blanket online, on EBay for 74.99 and in beige! Macy’s the day after Christmas is sort of like limbo. It’s not quite hell, but you know which direction you’re heading, and it ain’t heaven.

As for many happy returns, despite a record snowfall of just over two feet, (nothing keeps people from shopping) Macy’s, Zara, H & M, Club Monaco, and Banana Republic were packed. By the way, the day after, all those people who could make it to the malls and shopping centers despite the inclimate weather we're unable to get to work. Bah, Humbug sounding more like Caesar Augustus, cried Mayor Bloomberg, go to a Broadway show or out to a restaurant.

Bless me father for I have shopped. The last time I bought retail was six months ago. What is my penance? Six Hail Macy’s?

Men On The Dark Side

 

Advertising recently has taken a turn. In prior articles, “Vampires in Dior”, “Rate Your Mate” and “What The Well Dressed Vampire is Wearing”, I have begun investigating this phenomenon.

Without spelling it out, imagery of men on the dark side seems to be all the rage in the fashion tabloids. In the ads something terrible has just happened, or is about to. The conquest has been made, or the pursuit is escalating. It’s cinematic. It’s theatrical. It’s breathtaking.

 

It reflects where the culture is, this dark side, sinister, foreboding, catering to the horrid, macabre, perverse, and the disenfranchised. Yet at the same time it seeks to elevate, to heighten our awareness, and reconsider what is power or truly powerful.

 

There is an abundance of black and white images, a world were color has been drained like blood. Where there is color, it’s monochromatic or bleached out. Its dusk, its dawn, its twilight.

 

The men may be well defined, and have Chelsea aesthetic bodies, but their faces are feminine, pale, albeit scruffy. Their hair is dressed in Physique Pictorial pompadour styles, and slicked back like Italian gigolos. Their lips are as rounded and as pronounced as a Los Angeles housewife. Clearly defined gender roles are blurred.

 

The men are beautifully suited in shiny silk, reflecting the moonlight, albeit in sizes just one size too small, as if their bodies, like their genetailia has swollen, and is about to erupt. It’s a world of recreational sex and sex as ownership. It’s a world of haute couture and costume. It's pretence. It's hedonism.

Where there are two men, which there often is, one is clearly in charge, more powerful and aware. He is upright and prone. The other is vulnerable, breathless and subservient, supine.

 

Luxury retailers seem to be enamored with this paradigm. D & G, Gucci, Chanel, Tom Ford, YSL, Prada, and Dior ape each other like Morse code, communication the same S.O.S. They like characters in the film do not seem aware they have wandered into the graveyard or basement. Regardless, danger is as obvious as the hand reaching out of the darkness. When we look at the ads we are the reflection in the mirror that their supporting player is shocked to see. We are cast as voyeurs.

 

Is it attractive? Yes. Does it work? Yes. Is it a fad or a trend? I say it’s a trend. It’s seems to be attaching itself to the culture like a parasite. It’s feeding off of the bland, of which there is much. It follows the spate of TV shows, films, and popular novels that associates current popular values like the “outsider” verses the mainstream as being more potent, more interesting and therefore more desirable.

We live in a limbo like world where protease inhibitors allow us to go on with our lives, albeit cautiously. It follows this epic period of sexual history where blood is equivalent to condemnation.  So desperate are we for any affirmation we seek to “normalize” the equation by saying that despite science being able to intervene and rectify the matter that we can still choose to exercise our prerogative, and freely proceed into the nether world of neither here nor there.

It’s a classic crisis of identity that is romanticized in novels. We have not come far from the 19^th century. It’s this desire for redemptive love that drives Jane Eyre to go back to Edward Rochester, or Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights to go back to Heathclift, or Bella Swan in Twilight to go back to Edward Cullen. 

The containment of an emotion is infinitely more interesting than the emotion itself. The ads are aware of this and shows us the eruption, the festering boiling pot.

We may never elect to live in this world but we are guaranteed to want to visit it safely from our homes and offices where we opt to live the most mundane lives.

Are You Who You Used To Be?

We always carry the past with us. Some in increments as small as a letter or heart shaped locket, dear and sweet, some carry their past in suitcases as large as a steamer trunks so heavy with grief they are encumbered to move forward with any ease. Its begs the question… are you who you used to be?

Who did I used to be? I am fifty-four, but today I am thinking about the past, when I was sixteen or maybe seventeen. I swear I do not know why. I am traveling in a conveyance of the past, the Erie-Lackawanna. The line was founded before the Civil War, and is a remnant of the past, when train travel was as commonplace as Manifest Destiny. I think it's 1973 or ‘74. Even then, the Erie Lackawanna is old. It is older than my grandparents are, and worn about as well. The exterior is painted drab olive like an army fatigue from World War 1, and like a soldier, the train looks like something that was once distinguished, but not decorated with any honors. The seats are French caned, and worn through in inopportune spots. The blackout curtains are frayed, shorn to threads, and some do not operate. People smoke to pass the time, and plumes of smoke rise and hover over our heads like vaporic dreams. Men extinguish the ashes of their cigarette butts out with the heels of their Florsheim’s right on the floor. No one looks askance. If you are bothered by smoke, the only relief is to open a window…if you can jiggle one open. There is no air conditioning. There are oscillating caged fans that are fuzzy and caked with lint. The fans, when they do work, rotate as fast as a 78.They offer little comfort or respite, other than easing the mind. The floors are not covered in carpet or clad in linoleum, they are poured concrete. In winter, they are as warm as the ice in Maple Crest Park, and as easily prone to crackle. A collision, if ever there was one seems moot. The train is too heavy to crash. It lumbers like a stampede of elephants. I am on this steel tomb traveling from New York City where I have been in to see the French Impressionists at the Met. I am not thinking about Monet or Van Gogh. I’m on the 5:15 and thinking about far more lovely...home. The Erie Lackawanna lines motto is, "The Friendly Service Route". The conductor punches my ticket with his clippers that cut a crescent shaped hole out of my receipt so I cannot use it again. The conductor wears a change dispenser like the Good Humor man. He is dressed in a navy blue uniform with brass buttons and wears a patent leather visored hat. He is quite daper. Even in 1973 or ‘4 he looks like costumed character in an old movie from MGM. He is perfunctorily friendly.

How much of me today is who I used to be? How is it that I remember the past with such clarity? It is an ordinary day, as the train lurches like a dowager into the South Orange station; I see the town sign, welcoming me home. It’s as familiar and forgettable as my bedroom wallpaper. The placard is gold serif font capped letters on a black background, SOUTH ORANGE. It’s crazed, flaking away like a memory, decomposing so slowly as to not really take notice. Suspended on rusted chains, the sign swings almost waving hello. The sign is burnt like peeling skin from the summer sun, and crackled like exema, by winter’s icicles. I have pulled into a station that was built in 1915, nothing has changed. It dare not. The walls are painted in the same governmental beige like the courthouse, hospital and jail cells. They are as thick as icing, glossy and slick as gum. The wainscoted tiles are a speckled, and glazed in a coppery brown. The terrazzo floors are polished. The wood benches look like an inverted roll down desktop. The varnish has won off from age and wear. The roof is done in the Spanish tradition, terra cotta and terribly eaten away. This station was built to last, and designed in a sort of gothic art moderne style, if there is such a thing. Regardless, the ceilings are impossibly tall, and an echo is present reminding you are in a kind of temple. Intricate windowss are a story tall, and have dish sized cut outs lacing through the elongated panes. The overall effect is almost holy, it creates a kind of imposed reverence, like church or museum, a place where you know you should respectfully lower your voice. Still it has seen better days. It is a Saturday afternoon and the 5:15 pulls into South Orange at a quarter of 6:00. Father says there are not many things in life that are as reliable as the 5:15.

The skies are just beginning to darken, it is not quite dusk. Dinner is served promptly at 6:00. This is ritual, like going to the 10:15 mass and taken as seriously as my mother. This gives me fifteen full minutes to waltz home.

To me, South Orange is like an engagement. It is a promise for a life. You must be faithful and practice fidelity. It means you belong to someone, and that they in turn belong to you. That is what we residents are raised to believe.

A lot of my life story can be told by names. Like the perfubctory names of the streets, I will traverse to get home. I walk up South Orange Avenue to Valley Street, then Second Avenue, down Academy across Prospect Street to Garfield Place. Home. Garfield Place was named for President James Garfield who was assassinated in of all places a train station. Therefore Garfield Place seems almost mournfully romantic. On Garfield Place I will walk past the homes of our neighbors, italians, irish catholics and Jews, an integrated street, where the Ostrovsky’s, the McGurty’s, the Evans‘, the Mollach’s, the Larkin’s, The Heber’s and Houle’s, and the Jocknowitz’s live. Our lives are bound to one another. Some in meaningful ways other just by the trivialities of life and shared experiences. I have to walk pass my neighbors home every day, several times a day. So often that I do not need to open my eyes to see where I am going. This is a ritual I know so well, it’s monotonous. To pass the monotony I hum to my self-old songs ever present like “It Ain’t Gonna Rain, No More, No More!”  and Stephen Foster's, “Why Must The Beautiful Always Die”. Songs so old they are a part of my DNA. I do not know where they come from, perhaps from our music primers at school “Making Music Your Own” by Mary Tinan Jay, our Clinton School kindergarten teacher.  Now new people who I do not know are living on Garfield Place. That seems impossible. I seem impossible too.

Am I who I used to be? Have I edited something meaning out? I think. I struggle to convey how beautiful it once was. How beautiful I once was. Garfield Place is a pretty Street. The homes were built between the wars, 1918 and 1939. Like the Erie Lackawanna, they were built to last. They are stable buildings, in the Victorian styles of Queen Anne, Edwardian, Tudor, and Mission. More names. They have three, four and five bedrooms, basements and attics. Families tend to have as many children as there are bedrooms, although many of us share bedrooms with our baby brothers or older sisters with much regret. Our homes have cold pantries, back porches and architectural trim that is exquisite. Some families still get milk, eggs, butter, soda, laundry, dry cleaning, the evening paper and prescriptions from the pharmacy and the evening paper delivered. Our doorbells ring with great frequency .

The yards are still green and the leaves are the last shade of green. Just before, they explode in color for autumn. The maple trees like enchanted guards hover over us stationary, forceful and silent. Dotted between them are oaks, elms and chestnuts. They too create presence, suggest stability, and speak to history. The summer gardens are picked over and the last blossoms are burnt by frost and tinged with mildew, resulting in a cacophony of dizzying fragrance into the wood chip mulch purchased from Pierson’s Mill.

My memory is illuminated by the past. The streetlights are lit by gas, they are lanterns. They cast eerie yellow shadows on the pavement. State of the art in 1920, they have the efficiency of candlelight to illuminate a room. The street lights look like set dressing in a turn of the century melodrama. They speak like shorthand to another time that we share, if not fully live in. The sidewalks are mostly grey slate slabs milled from the local quarry, Kiernan’s, long ago defunct. Roots from trees have forced them up at odd angles and present liability issues for the town fathers, but residents love them and fight to keep them. We are resistant to change, and slate is more romantic than concrete. Responsible parents have turned on the front lights on their porches and porticos to help guide us home safely. Inside the front windows, homes have turned on the living room lights and TV sets hum with incendiary light.

Home. What is a home? It is a place of business and activity and intense loneliness. Time passes as quickly as TV dinner can be made. Loneliness is about absence. How does one describe what’s not there, what’s missing? Loneliness creeps in slowly on pirouette, like a sugar plum fairy, on point, precarious, elevated as if not earth bound. Loneliness is difficult to contain because it’s like air, it has no form or definition, and it is invisible. It is everywhere. Everywhere except the moon.

Happiness is not a TV dinner. Our ovens are baking hot and all four stove tops are burning bright with pots filled with food. The smells of garlic, beef and cauliflower spill out into the street. More names to identy us, Saturday night in the suburbs is roast beef with gravy or breaded pork chops and Mott's applesauce. It is bowls of frozen string beans in Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup with French’s baked onion skins; there is cauliflower in Velveeta cheese sauce. There are glasses filled with Coke or Dr. Pepper There are Parker House Rolls warmed in the oven, or Pillsbury Crescent rolls, black from over baking and dripping in Imperial margarine to deaden the taste. Saturday night is as meaningful as a TV commercial where actors pretend to be happy families. They tell us how it should be, and how it should taste. It is confounding that in every other household on Garfield Place that this ritual is occurring. Slick advertisers on Madison Avenue have realized the personification of their dreams. Unfortunately, like dreams, it is quickly forgotten.

We are anesthetized by life. At dinner, we seldom speak except to exchange unpleasantries and banalities. I don’t know what we do if some real was to happen, if someone expressed a genuine emotion. We therefore watch TV reruns on the portable TV. The familiarity of the expected is welcome and safe. We debate the merits of the news, “Bewitched“, “I Dream of Jeannie“, “Lucy” and “The Adams Family“. We settle on “Lucy”, when the grim and sardonic Charles Addams is more apropos. The loneliness is as heavy as grief.

But what in heaven’s sake does it all mean? Am I who I used to be? I suppose an open heart is like an open sore, easily infected and likely to fester. Today my heart is open, it is sore, not a fatal wound, just a tiny pierce from the past, but it beats the way it used to, when I was who I used to be.

SIEGEL & STOCKMAN: Vintage Paris

Siegel & Stockman is one of the earliest houses of mannequin design dating back to the late 1800’s. It’s a historical company that traces the industry and worthy of research. They have long been present in the USA, and are best know for their classic dressmaker forms. They are so well know for their dressmaker forms that many people forget that they also do mannequins, and they do them very well. Over recent years Siegel & Stockman have merged with Mannex Display, Paris, and Rent-A-Form, and now represent “Hans Boodt”, the mannequin house from the Netherlands. Siegel & Stockman have done what many companies have done over the past decade, in an attempt to survive, they’ve merged with struggling companies and represent for European manufactures here in the US.

 





Siegel and Stockman have the unparallel benefit of picking vintage mannequins from their own collections, which are exhaustive. France once ruled the world in mannequin design, there was Pierre Imans and Siegel & Stockman. Today what most manufactures call vintage is really just copies of someone else’s work, or something meant to look old. Tea stain alone does not make anything look vintage. Siegel and Stockman went to their original molds from Paris circa the 1930’s to 1950’s and lovingly painted them to sheer perfection. They are swathed in a glossy finish that conjures up that period of French sophistication, movie matinee handsomeness, and charming schoolgirl appeal that only the French can comprehend. There is a kind of animation that call to mind the square face and cleft cheeked stability of a dreamy young John Wayne and the insouciant quality of the comely Jean Peters. And while referencing the past, there’s something so refreshing real and joyful about the forms that one could easily dress then up in today’s fashion and they’d fit in perfectly.

The Hans Boodt collection is decidedly young, hip, edgy and modern. With bold lettering behind the tableaus stating, “You’ve got to know me better.” and “Think outside the box.” So one need not figure out what the collection is about. The collection is hyper-realistic, wigged, made up and proportioned that many of today’s youngest movie stars, woefully thin, if not gaunt. This is an attractive collection. They are quite handsome. These are perfect juniors. If these mannequins could breathe they’d be shopping in Diesel and heading to some underground nightclub in DUMBO.  It’s a sexy collection. Kudos to the Netherlands, who like so many of our European colleagues are designing at a level far superior to the best US houses.

Showroom Siegel & Stockman USA is located at 126 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 Phone: (212) 633- 0138 Toll-Free (888) 515-8949 www.siegel-stockman.com sales@siegel-stockman.com

The Beautiful Grotesque at SILVESTRI

If one company needs to be singled out for making a statement, then it would have to be Silvestri of California.  Showing at 7 West, this California company has an august history. It is a company that is known for its beautiful mannequins and periodic ventures into high design.

 

Silvestri choose to show its newest collection “Real”, aptly titled as the collection is based on “real” people. Not real models, real people, that means people like you or me, average, odd, idiosyncratic, and okay, ugly. It is a kind of grotesque, albeit make palatable. To balance the jarring reality of “real” Silvestri peppered in like seasoning some of its more handsome “Metro” collection.  It is difficult to take your eyes off of the “Real” collection. To intentionally decide to present unattractive mannequins requires confidence, I.e., balls! Would I want to look at a mannequin that looked like me? No. But I’m a hypocrite, as I believe that the limited view of what constitutes beauty is bias, too often symmetrical features, Euro-centric, patrician, more what we are not, and not what we are. In reality the world, America in particular has a changing face, blended with elements of features that read Latino, Asian, and Mexican. Faces that are Semitic, Middle Eastern, and in some cases Artic. We are no longer confined to a few racial check boxes; we are more than one thing. Silvestri seems to be anticipating what will occur in short order. In that, they are ahead of the industry. But visionary are usually only appreciated in retrospect.

I have to confide, while the “Real” collection has limited appeal. I bet that in a store window where we are so accustomed to pretty mannequins these forms would stop traffic. You are compelled to look. The “Real” collection is not easy, nor is it meant to be. It requires some work. You need to think. The mannequins are statement pieces that speak to inclusion. It is a collection that opts to equalize the playing field. To reinforce the concept behind “real” is reinforced with oversized graphics of the “Real” models, shot in a documentary style and reduced to a negative/positive image. The photos are unflinching with every human flaw enlarged on the four foot by six-foot canvases. Silvestri ultimately makes a strong statement about beauty. Silvestri offers scores of (traditional) beautiful mannequins, but after a few minutes of meandering through their showroom you begin to acclimate, and what at first seems uncomfortable, now feels welcome. The come away is that attendee left discussing the collection. It encouraged health debate.

If the “Real” collection were the only offering at Silvestri, I would say it was a rousing success.  Nevertheless, Silvestri had what perhaps one of this year’s most talked about mannequins. It is a nine-foot female form that wears a size two. If you think you misread that last sentence, let me repeat, it is a nine-foot female that wears a size two dress. This form too is a kind of grotesque. It is so unexpected, so monumental that one cannot imagine who would have the need for it. It is not meant for the “Big & Tall Store” or “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”. Many attendees just did not get it. It is easy to dismiss it as sheer folly and wasteful. If you are unimaginative then I cannot convince you otherwise. However, if you are adventuresome, if you are one of those people eager to take a risk and dive into the deep end of the pool. You will call Silvestri immediately. The form beside an escalator bay would be stunning. In an atrium, it would be a showstopper. Even in the back of a deep department, it would beckon you to venture to the peripheral walls. The scale and proportion is magnificent. I adored it. I love the Modigliani- like shaped face and the huge alienist hands.

Silvestri was awash in the beautiful grotesque. It was horrifically beautiful!

Silvestri of California is located at 8125 Beach Street, Los Angeles, CA 90001 Phone: 323-277-4420 Toll Free: 800-647-8874 www.silvestricalifornia.com  info@silvestricalifornia.com

Come back soon for SIEGEL & STOCKMAN: Vintage Paris and Hans Bodt

PATINA-V: Is Modern Art Modern?

With corporate headquarter on the West Coast, Patina-V showed at 7 West. Recent showrooms have warranted the attention of many mannequin enthusiasts, especially last year’s showroom with Patina-V’s mannequins with elongated arms, so expectations were already set high.

This year’s showroom presented several new collections, which begs the questions, is modern art modern? Are mid-century shapes new, or retro-chic? Is the work of Ray Eames relevant? Are the pompadour hairstyles of the 1950’s and early ‘60’s back in style? And what does it all mean? Are we retreating to the past, or are we being moved forward by it?

Patina-V’s central element was a suspended amorphic post-atomic shaped sculpture. The art piece was a series of organic shaped pieces strung through a threaded cable, appearing like the disks in a spine of some prehistoric mutant. Some pieces were serrated like the eye of a giant needle. People described it as finger-like. Others described it as sci-fi seaweed. Trying to identify it would be like trying to identify life on another planet. The piece worked. The piece had the presence of a museum installation at MoMA. While shown in warm fleshy beige, it could be in any color, or many colors.

Balancing the ambivalence of the form were cast branches. Repeated in clusters and lit to cast eerie shadows forewarning something menacing. The branches were painted in a sickly pale green, and a sickly pale yellow. At first glance, they were almost antler-like, almost living. It might sound unappealing, but it was very arresting. They commanded your attention. Again, the pieces worked perfectly well without any merchandising. It too had the strength of an art piece. Below the wall, mounted branches were a bank of identically shaped branches standing upright, like a repetitive forest. One branch lightly merchandised with a beaded necklace, creating a poetic exploration of product.

The Patina-V mannequins are of the pouty variety. They seem to be haughty, above it all, whatever it is. They are women with hair, and lots of it. Long and crinkled, or styled in baloney curls, the kind of style that women wore on the cover of Vogue in 1968, high, set with Aqua Net and Dippity-Do. The women are severe, high style, and clearly meant for Neiman Marcus and not Wal-Mart. The pose and seem aware of themselves. Like a model, they seem to like being objectified.

Patina offers many collections. I was particularly interested with one of their men’s collections because of its striking resemblance to the Dum Dum sculpture from the Easter Islands, now made famous by the film series “Night at the Museum”. It is odd, quirky and off center. I have never seen them used in actual application, but they dress beautifully and I think would represent something very distinctive in a retailer’s window or on their sales floor.

Patina-V is specific and meant to appeal to a very specific clientele who appreciate art and artistry. The work is modern and speaks to the contemporary consumer.

Patina-V is located at 15650 Salt Lake Avenue, City of Industry, CA, 91745 Phone: 626-961-2471 www.patinav.com

Coming up next The Beautiful Grotesque at SILVESTRI

The World According to UNIVERSAL DISPLAY

I come to Universal Display with a fondness already firmly placed. US Sales Director, Bill Conklin is a colleague, a person I have had the pleasure to work with, and a person I admire. Universal Display like many mannequin houses in recent years has undergone several administrative changes. Universal Display is one of those rare examples, the exception to the rule, where the company, despite administrative changes, has remained stable, reliable and a perennial mainstay. To me, Mr. Conklin is an anchor in that equation.

Universal Display is really a British company with an extensive history in the US. I think of them not as “universal” but really, “all American”. Universal Display is a classic middle of the roader. I say that not as a swipe or dig, but to convey that Universal Display produce what the vast majority of us most desire, mannequins that are workhorses, well constructed, not as subject to the whims of fashion that dates in a few short seasons. These are mannequins you will use for years and years. Its something called longevity. These are mannequins that are seminal pieces, and did I mention that Universal Display produces a product that is affordable. I think of Universal Display like a gentleman, it fits in anywhere. (Mrs. Brice to Fanny: “A sponge fits in anywhere too!”)

Universal Display’s bailiwick is classic well-designed mannequins, usually semi-abstract with molded hair. The male mannequins are very masculine and designed well enough accept spotlighting very well, that is to say, they have deep set eyes and high cheek bones  so that shadows are cast like a photograph by Hurrell. The female mannequins are sculpted to appear strong, confidant and intelligent looking, and are decidedly not like the bland, blank starring variety endemic in the industry. Universal Display does not play with gender roles, men are men, and women are women. Universal Display does not cater to the more common overtly sexual mannequins that most houses produce. You know the look, sort of Euro-trashy, blatant and flirtatious…if not titillating. Universal Display opts to work towards the setting that most retailers find themselves in, a sober world, upright, proper, mannered.

The Universal Display showroom was a simple construction of strung cords in geometric shapes, lit to cast elongated distorted shadows. Layered on top were die cast geometric shapes of interlocking net like shapes. The color palate was predominantly black and white, with variant shades of grey and ivory. The overall effect is moody, but not morose. Universal Display has a large showroom, and opts to not clutter it with product. There is always a kind of visual restraint, with negative space to absorb and digest the clustered tableaus.

Universal Display also does some great specialty pieces, like its small accessory forms reminiscent of a soap sculptures by Lester Gaba. While feminine in form, their nakedness is artistic, not salacious. Cast in grey, and set on geometric cubes they would be perfect for jewelry, scarves and small leather goods.

(Trend alert!) Universal Display also is offering these hybrids, half mannequins/half dressmaker forms. Part fiberglass/part padded muslin and articulated (jointed) arms, legs or heads. This too is a trend, retailers are longing to exercise some control over posture, pose and position. The retail community is moving back to some storytelling. Universal Display is there to meet that expectation and demand.

(Trend alert!) Universal Display also predicts what we are seeing elsewhere, which is adding fake eyelashes to abstracted heads. The culture of hairless, wigless mannequins is appearing “old hat“, and the pendulum is swinging back towards realistic, or at least some realism. How far will the trend go? I predict that in several years many (if not most) mannequins will be hyper-realistic.

The world according to Universal Display is a pleasant place, a shopable and safe world. It is a world worth visiting.

Universal Display & Design Inc. is located at 138 West 25th Street, 2nd Floor New York NY 10001 Phone: 212 242-0374 www.universaldisplay.co.uk info@universaldisplayusa.com

Coming up next PATINA-V: Is Modern Art Modern?

ROOTSTEIN: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt it was 1978 or 9, and there I was in Halston’s loft on the Upper East Side on 63rd Street. An architectural lair, with staircases without handrails, Italian suede couches that swallow you up. It was beautiful and sad. A sort of lonely dream. Roy stood in the corner as a model in a gauze veil walked past him like a ghost. He was surveying the incessant chatter of gossip. Conducting his soiree like an orchestra leader. It was all a din and I could not make out a word. His back was turned, but I knew it was him. It was as if he knew he was going away.

All the “beautiful people” were there. Can it be that Liza performed a number in her red sequin pantsuit from Liza with a Z? “God Bless The Child“, “It Was A Good Time”. I hear her voice, but the piano is silent. Mute as Judy after the third seconal. Liza is in fine fettle, she is fresh from Betty Ford. Is that a gin & tonic in her highball glass? Oh, look, Bianca is smoldering sans Jagger and Elsa Peretti is pouting because the new young editor of WWD does not recognize her.  Babe Paley had her hair dyed platinum to match the shade of her white organdy ruffles with the cinched waist, and Jackie O dropped by in her knit slacks and jersey cape. Her sunglasses are smudged. Sunglasses? It is late at night. I swear Liz was there in a halter-top, her boobs poking out of her sheath, Faberge lavender like her eyes. I can hear her laughing at something some young Greek man is saying in broken English. There are handsome men in ultra suede pajamas, anonymous, ripe, available to the highest bidder, hired for their beauty, lounging, come hither. They litter the room like confetti but are only half as fun. There are lithographs by Warhol almost mocking us, but wait…there is Andy, he came with a string of Factory boys, like Joe Dallesandro. Paul Morrissey and Mink, all dressed exactly like him. Is it performance art? Are we being filmed? What will I do with my fifteen minutes of fame? Why didn’t I bring my copy of “Interview” for Andy to sign?

Why are these people here? Did the cocaine at Studio 54 dry up? Was Max’s Kansas City closed down again? Can it be? There is Brook Shields talking to Cher. Maybe Brook is guesting on her series. Did I say Halston was glowering in the corner? Now I see him sitting on the floor, he has changed into a satin tuxedo, and he is petting his longhaired Pomeranian, Butch. It is Halston, but the Dorian Gray version, handsome, youthful, and narcissistic. The smoke from all the cigarettes has created a kind of haze. There are waiters serving Martini’s with black Kalamata olives. There are hot hors d’ouvres, sliced baguettes with goat cheese and dill. It sounds splendid and glamorous, doesn’t it? Then why is it so sad. There is a malaise. Does everyone know the sword of Damocles is about to descend. Whom will it claim? As beautifully disturbing as this dream is, when I awake I want to return. What’s wrong with me? Its not the world as it was, it’s the world as it should be.

There are only two men in this industry with real bonafied imagination, Kevin Arpino and Michael Steward. They work at Adel Rootstein, and each year manage to raise the creative bar higher. Some might dismiss their accomplishments and smugly state, “Yeah, they’re good, but look at their budget”. As if money had anything to do with talent. As if skill had anything to do imagination, As if artistry had anything to do execution.

I understand that Mr. Steward personally recreated every garment in the showroom after doing extensive research at FIT. He redesigned the Peretti pieces and tweaked them so that there just a bit bigger, more flamboyant. Clearly homage, not simple mimicry. If recreating dozens of outfits was not enough, he wired the garments so that every pleat and drape falls exactly where he wanted them too. Is it obsessive? It is the kind of obsessive attention to detail that gothic architects and Martha Stewart would insist upon, but rest assured, this showroom is not a temple nor is it a cupcake.

Rootstein is often compared to automotive designers like Rolls Royse, Bentley, Ferrari and Lamborghini to suggest the ultimate in quality and design (and expense), to suggest classic modernism. Some might suggest that Rootstein’s mannequin lines are too beautiful, too perfect, and therefore lacking in depth. If you are of that camp, then you would not appreciate a painting by David or a ballet by Diaghilev.

Ultimately, what works in Rootstein’s favor is its theatricality, its drama, its dry humor. Rootstein is an event, a kind of “happening”. What works is Rootstein’s commitment to embracing a point of view. To making a decision, a choice. Rootstein is fearless. They are willing to take a risk. Granted, some years it is less successful, but it still works. Halston is an unconventional choice. Halston, which is now reemerging under new (albeit circumspect) creative leadership, would probable do well to send their staff to study at the foot of Rootstein. There are lessons to be learned here. The 1970’s is an era that gets short shrift and reduced to cultural stereotypes like disco. Rootstein’s isolates and elevates Halston’s sartorial contribution to fashion.

Rootstein, even if you cannot afford them is worth placing on your radar. One Rootstein mannequins would probably move more merchandise than five of any one else's. Recent collections “Loverboy” and “Young & Restless” have created quite a sensation. It is hard to imagine that a mannequin can be considered controversial. Yet nearly every major press outlet debated their merits and its affect on the culture. Rootstein’s work at Ralph Lauren with their classic Yasmin LeBon mannequin is so closely tied to the retailer that it is almost impossible to separate the two.

In a world of relentless reality, I wish you sweet dreams, strange haunting dreams.

Adel Rootstein USA Inc. is located at 205 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011 (212) 645-2020 www.rootstein.com

Coming up next The World According to UNIVERSAL DISPLAY

The Past, The Present, and The Future: ADCO

I have said it before and I will say it again, this is a manufacturer that you need to keep on your radar. In the past, Adco was the perennial underdog; they were the new kid on the block, an upstart. Adco continues to rise in prominence. With recent successful installations at Saks, Macy's and Lord & Taylor, they are just hitting their stride, and the present looks sunny and bright. This is an industry where you are as good as your last job. Saks, Macy's and Lord & Taylor are great jobs.

Why might you consider Adco for your display purchases? Another benefit to factor in when considering a sale is reliability, integrity and service. These attributes are personified in the US Sales Manager (and yes, good friend) Antonino Libasci. These are values that too few of the manufacturers in our industry are simply not able to provide.

Adco is a Canadian manufacturer, with headquarters in Quebec and factories  Montreal, Milan, (and for larger orders) in China. Adco has a presence here in the US and understands the American model, which is… “I want it to look like an expensive item, use it for my moderate price point store, but I have to purchase it at what amounts to discount pricing“. Most American manufactures refuse to acknowledge that this is the current working paradigm. Instead of acknowledging what the customer is thinking, they dictate that the consumer should come around to their way of thinking. I would not hold my breath.

Adco had one of the best booths at 7 West. Adco created a mini-showroom where great authentic vintage fashion from the 20’s to the present was nicely merchandised. Yes, we have seen this before, but Adco introduced an interesting take, and rifled into these decadal fashion montages were historic mannequins from once epitomes companies like Mary Brosnan, Wolf & Vine, Lillian Greneker and Dector. These American companies once controlled the industry by creating the most beautiful forms in the world. To place the world’s best mannequins next to yours requires confidence in your product. Benefit! This also places your company on the time continuum of mannequins, it says… “Look, we appreciate the artistry of the past, and aspire to be apart of it, as we are a part of the future”.

Tom Smith who is Adco's Stylist outdid himself with setting up a beautiful both, more a mini-showroom, with great fashion, merchandising and a wonderful flow on the floor taking you from one colection to the next. Nods to Adco’s make-up artists who refurbished the vintage forms with period’s makeup and wigs, including the 1940s hairstyle with her “Victory Rolls” and Dache- like chapeau. It is a difficult task to remain faithful to the time, and still make the forms look fresh. Nods to Adco’s stylist who pulled together looks that were honest and still attractive, which is not easy for difficult decades like the 70’s when the best clothing was how shall I put this…dodgy?

While I practically drool over anything vintage, I must confide that Adco’s mainstay mannequins still work very well. There are standard mannequins and custom lines, some more edgy and youthful, like “downtown”. some more animated and comical, like their “Bijou” line. Adco does fixtures, props and decoratives too.

I do have a crystal ball, but alas, my reflection is all I have ever seen in it. That being said, I would still predict that Adco will meet a tall dark stranger, he will be a buyer from a major department store chain and that the world will beat a path to Adco’s door.

Adco Group World is located at 5400 Armand-Frappier, St-Hubert, Quebec J3Z 1G5 Telephone: 514 898-0180 Toll-Free: 1-800-361-9030 www.adco.ca  antonino@adco.ca

Coming up next ROOTSTEIN: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

BERNSTEIN DISPLAY: How Does the Wine Taste?

I attended Bernstein Display’s Cocktail Party on a Thursday evening. I seldom drink, as it is simply something I cannot abide, although its affects are very welcome. Two white wines and I am as doddering as Franklin Pangborn. The white wine at Bernstein’s was bold, tart, fruity and dry. Drinking in the middle of the week seems very Warner Brothers to me. Nick and Nora Charles did not show up, but I did run into Denise Foley, Director of Interiors, for Bergdorf Goodman’s. Ms. Foley is one of the best-kept secrets in our industry. Her work at Bergdorf’s speaks for itself, and it speaks with great articulation and unparallel taste. A young Myrna Loy could play Ms. Foley to perfection. If you like Bergdorf’s interiors then you would adore Ms. Foley.  (That is if you like attractive redheads.) I also was reintroduced to Cindy Bass, formerly of Kohl’s who is now working at Bernstein. Ms. Bass is charming, and a wonderful salesperson. She is as approachable as a body has the right to be. I was waiting for Professor Jonathan Baker, London College of Art, who traveled from the UK to attend the show. His website www.retailstorewindows.com is among one of my favorites, and one I frequently promote. Come to think about it, William Powell would make a great Professor Baker. One of the greatest benefits of the NADI Show is networking and running into colleagues. It is sort of like those great Art Deco escapist movie musicals, where sophisticated bon viviants meet to share quips and snide comments in elegant nightclubs.

Now I must make one admission, Bernstein’s is co-hosting a fashion event for Threads of Color www.threadsofcolor.org (a 501 C3 pending) of which I am on the Board. If you are in New York on January 11th, and if glamorous fashion events are your kind of thing, please visit the website and consider coming to this charity event. It is going to be spectacular. I will not give you the hard sell. Bernstein CEO, Roger Friedman and Don McKnight, Creative Director, have been very generous to this wonderful organization.

Last year, with no bias before me I gave Bernstein a rave, so at the risk of sounding like a broken record, again, Bernstein has a lot to offer the retail landscape.

 
As you enter the showroom, you are greeted by vintage tea stained muslin covered mannequins with articulated arms and legs. They are integrated with realistic and abstracted fiberglass mannequins in a flat antique gold. There are great oversize props like golden scissor so large that they look like cast offs from “The Princess Bride”. The scenario is set with vintage props like old Singer sewing machines, rolls of linen and animal hyde. The overall effect is nostalgic and speaks to heritage, that’s heritage with a modern twist.

  

As you venture further into the showroom the offerings morph into a kind of retro sci-fi, with white mannequins in clear plastic sheets like a NASA packaged food pouch. Red warning lights illuminate the blank starring mannequins with garish drama. I can almost see Keir Dullea in shock as HAL takes over the ship. It would be alienating except for the vintage 1950’s illuminated C-prints in black and white of burly tee shirted factory workers working on female mannequins with atomic waistline measurements. Classic Tensor laps are set at random heights to indicate that designers have been near. Riddled into the cubed walls are accessory forms, parts and pieces, like disembodied heads, arms and hands in raw wood, flat black clear resin and white.

The center of the showroom is dedicated to a runway presentation set on a white Clockwork Orange-like illuminated plexi platform. On the catwalk are strutting mannequins. The abstracted (egg headed) mannequins wear long blonde wigs with a light Marcel peek-a-book hairstyle that apes Veronica Lake. (Trend alert…abstracted egg headed mannequins with wigs are an emerging trend.) The mannequins are painted in warm beige, which is welcome to the sterile white so often used.

The runway is a series of three fixtures, each fixture isolating a different Bernstein collection. Because the oversize platform runs about eighteen or more inches off of the ground, the artistry and realism of the mannequins are elevated too. The details of the garments are at eye height.  Nods to the film “Burlesque” are made with girl’s in short sparkly dresses and shirtless men in black derbies.

Bernstein’s is an all-purpose house with design capabilities. They do great fixturing and of course there is their classic “Bella Donna” form that every other company tries to copy. It is one of those armless sculptural forms that is so attractive it is almost a shame to dress.

So how did the wine taste? It tasted good.

Bernstein Display is located at 151 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-337-9578 www.bernsteindisplay.com

Coming up next The Past, the Present, and the Future: ADCO