389: NYFW Days 3 + 4 / Welcome to New York, Métier
Anna Wintour's custom dog beds, Olsen sightings, can a leopard change its spots?
Magasin’s pop-up Fashion Week newsletter-within-a-newsletter, where we go on the ground to suss out hot shopping gossip from scenes of interest: New York Fashion Week, Days 3+4.
Weather report
71ºF / 21º C — barely had a sip of champagne since before FW began, but the running around alone is enough to give me a freshman hangover…skipped some appointments to catch up on rest and work. Daily blogging back tomorrow. Or maybe not!
Itinerary
Sept 10
10a Proenza Schouler press preview — a surprise addition to the calendar following the announcement that Rachel Scott would be stepping in as creative director, featuring work she’d created for the brand while in a consulting role though not considered her “debut collection.” There’s this one dress everyone who saw it is already vying to wear…
11a Haircut with Ashley Javier
12:30p Grey’s press preview — a deep-cut IYKYK brand, recently transplanted to Manhattan to delve deeper into “it.” With a craft-artisan ethos, there’s some tension between maintaining that special, intimate quality while also advancing the business side of things (the case for so many great ideas). You’ll find it at respectively IYKYK stores like Outline in small quantities…a get for dressers who value irreplicable shopping.
2p Métier store tour — see below!
6p Balenciaga cocktail
6:30p Louis Vuitton cocktail
7p Miu Miu Select & Coco Gauff cocktail
8p Jessica McCormack & Zoë Kravitz cocktail at The Frick Collection — I love this kind of cocktail: beautiful venue, intimate-ish, conversational pitch. Guests could pick a card from a wall for the chance to win fine jewelry; my friend Vesper closed out the night with an invitation to pick out some $6,000 diamond .3 ct heart-shaped gypset earrings from the brand’s newly opened Madison Ave townhouse.
8p Highsnobiety fall issue launch party at Sake Bar Asoko — Noah Johnson’s first as EIC
10p Valentino Beauty party at Studio 54
Sept 11
9a Neous press preview
12p Heirlome press preview
7p Kate Walz presentation and cocktail — two words: tambourine bag. A few more words: She’s known for her pants, which I learned tonight she actually made the first time at 8 years old, for which she won a sewing award in her hometown.
7p Bode women’s store cocktail — another pant story to tell, this one about the three differently built women who all wore Bode’s Sailor Pants in various fabrics at the event, which fit them spectacularly, much better than I’d imagined them looking on me, but now I’m not so sure…
8p W Magazine and Bloomingdale’s party at Eleven Madison Park — love and appreciate BJ Novak’s fixture-dom in New York’s fashion scene. Olsen sighting feels important to share.
9:30p Numéro New York launch party at The Nines
some skips
Outfit rundown
AM
Bally Leather Peplum Jacket, $1,450 $2,900 / Auralee Hard Twist Denim 5 Pocket Pants, $440 / Tibi Perfect T-Shirt Shrunken V-Neck, $180 / The Row Marlo 12 Bag, $4,900 / Chanel Opera Shoes (on resale, $772)
PM
Miu Miu Stretch Jersey Midi Dress, $1,590 / Prada Enameled Metal Triangle Airbrushed Cleo (on resale, $1,312) / Neous Kalliope Heels, $775
PM (next day)
Veronica De Piante Klara Jacket in Wool Viscose, $1,895 / Tom Ford Silk Maxi Dress, $1,690 / Alaïa Studded Le Teckel Bag, $3,390 / Manolo Blahnik Satin Mules (on resale, $399)
Shopping gossip
Ok so this one is good: Aurora James is a wonderful well of intel, and during our conversation about gifts at the Bode cocktail, she let slip that she knew of “someone” who had commissioned an order of custom dog beds as gifts. I pried, and someone is Anna Wintour, confirmed by the staff member who was chatting with us at the time. A tasteful gift! As to whether they’re still doing that, the associate was more vague. If they were to, it was suggested, such custom orders (including pillows, throws, etc.) would need about 12 weeks lead time, so for any already in the holiday mindset…in a Wintour-y mood…the time to act is now.
Another tidbit Aurora fed me regarded United Apparel Liquidators, a southern retail chain that supposedly buys old Moda Operandi stock and makes deeply cringy Instagram Lives hawking the merch. First pass and I’m seeing Emme Parsons under $100, recent-season Saint Laurent heels under $400, Alaïa leather for under $2k, and so on.
Louisa Jacobsen, by her own admission, wore this Gabriela Hearst dress for the second time this week to the W x Bloomingdales party. “It’s metal!” she said, literally, about the silk-blend skirt material.
Ran into Angelica Hicks at the Frick party, who is…such a vibe. Amid some too-serious gowns on attendees, she was wearing a polka dot-leopard print cashmere set, stitched with the words “a leopard can’t change its spots?” that she told me was part of her just-launched collaboration with Bloomingdale’s in-house line AQUA.
Neada Deters, of LESSE, hosted a short residency at the new and beautiful SYK Skin in Soho. She says she’s been going to founder Soo-Young Kim Abrams for her own (otherworldly) facial needs for years. I haven’t been, but from a scan of the site, I appreciate a practice that combines natural products (e.g. LESSE) with advanced techniques like Iontophoresis (a kind of electric current) and Sonophoresis (kind of ultrasound).
I’m sad I missed his cocktail the other day, but happy to share that sanderlak.com is finally live. Erstwhile Sies Marjan-heads rejoice.
Shop scene — Métier in New York, opening night + opening day
In the way that we’ve reclaimed the Upper East Side over the last two years, we may be now carving out a new Soho that’s more like its own creation myth as the original “downtown cool” than an international mall district found in every major city and most minor ones. Métier’s arrival this week, as part of a four-month residency program, is a bellwether of the return of discovery to the neighborhood.
I went by for the launch cocktail, where a stand-up bass player managed to be actually suave and not an ounce cheesy because the arriving guests he played to were attractive, interesting, well-to-do, and carrying Métier bags, naturally—Emily Bonita with the suede Ease clutch, co-designer Akari Endo-Gaut with the white version—a scene that, as founder Melissa Morris told me the next day, was enough to make her business partners say, to some effect…“I think you may have a handle on this brand-building thing.”
I went back the next day, the first of operations for the space, where I chatted with Melissa over what seemed like a very intense shopping spree from someone exploring her men’s line (like shopping in an auction house…dangerously contagious). A better opportunity to soak in the interior details I’d wide-eyed the night before—a Prouvé ceiling fixture (not unlike The Row Paris’ Prouvé door), Justin Bradshaw paintings from Galerie Sardine, a side table from Galerie Was—and of course the bags.
The tempting nubucks and calfskins of her latest collection were so deserving of this kind of woodsy, lush, deeply rich and yet somehow ebullient and charming home, being all of those things themselves. I hope it (and they) can stay here in New York for the long haul.
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Metier is really killing it--they've got some gorgeous pared back designs and classic with a twist shapes. Thanks for the review.
UAL’s store in the French Quarter in New Orleans is a gem. The last time I was there, I got Nili Lotan trousers, a Toteme top, and a Dries van Noten shirt for under $500 total. Totally makes sense that MO is their secret supplier!