Battlefield Retail

Having a store is crazy. I have been held up at gunpoint in my store, I got shoplifted a ton of times... once I caught a man with three sweaters down his pants. I yelled at him to show me what he stole and he extracted each sweater, one at a time. I had to keep asking him what else was down there. After the third sweater came out, can you blame me for not believing him when he said that was it? I demanded he show me what else he had tucked away and glanced down only long enough to notice he did not have any underwear on. I have loads of pigeon shit to deal with. A homeless man shits on the sidewalk in front of my store on occasion. I have seen him do it and then leave his pants down as he air-dries his ass. I have gotten tickets for having trash outside my store at 8 a.m. It is the East Village, for crap's sake, there is gonna be trash on the sidewalk at 8 a.m. I can't live there full time to clean up after the drinkers and the hangers. I had to install a state of the art security system, which costs a fortune to lease. I have a buzzer on my door which often offends people and they mistaken it as me trying to be exclusive. Try going back to the location where you were held up at gun-point, I want to tell them. Try sitting alone in a store with the door unlocked after that. I get so much rudeness in response to the buzzer. As people are guzzling up iphones and gold bricks as we dive deeper into a recession, I am just keeping my head above water. So why do I do it?!
Angry Shopgirl thinks she may sound too complainy. Let me just take a break from my rant to say what an amazing opportunity it is to have a business in New York City. How cool is it to be on the NYC map? The East Village may be going corporate, but there are still a ton of cool folks here. I do get some crazy people, but we also get some really awesome customers and we have a band of loyal supporters who really do make it all worth it. We small stores are often over-looked and over-taxed, but we do get love from our neighbors. Although I do need a place to let off steam, I want to make sure that the heat is going in the right direction and that I am still spreading the love.
But Barbara, if you could spread the love, or just give credit where credit is due, that would be great. You work far from the robbers and the shitters. I am here, on the ground. You guys want free stuff for your show, with no intention of even crediting me. Don't you think you could throw us little people a bone?

Open Your Mouth. It Pays.

I haven't stopped bitching about Barbara yet. It is too damn productive. The more I complain, the more people listen. I want people to listen to me. Come on, we all watch the world go by and bitch about how we could do this and that so much better. But we bitch in private. I propose we all start complaining more.
I had a woman approach me about getting involved in a prestigious, green, fund-raising event. Still reeling from Barbara Dis 2008, I started spouting off about how I did not want to be involved in any more green events or projects where I couldn't have more creative input. I gave her a long, passionate speech about how I am watching as the media misrepresents what I do and then criticizes me for mistakes that they make. I am sick of these uninformed people making definitions of what eco-friendly fashion is when they don't really know. I can't figure it out. So much research and technology goes into creating sustainable fabric, which is one of the key ingredients in green fashion. How is the layman to know what really makes something eco-friendly. Just because something is sold as eco-friendly, does not necessarily mean that it is. Come on. This is a huge trend. Obviously there are people trying to ride this trend wave and make a buck and don't care about the cause. Some of these people serendipitously end up doing something good. But this is such a new movement and the technology is developing as we speak. We find out that some things we thought were great are not good at all (bamboo fabric, corn fabric...) but those people who are not truly devoted sustainability are not asking the tough questions and are not keeping up with the latest developments. As the true eco-community moves past these mistakes, the wave riders keep on going 4 steps behind, 10 steps behind but are still calling what they do eco-friendly as they lessen the integrity of what I am trying to do. If this eco-fashion movement is to survive, if we are going to take this to the next level, we need to start talking louder and have our voices heard over the loud murmur of posers and wanna-bes and fakes.
So, this woman who was there to ask me to get involved in the prestigious, green event, she took in a whole earful from me and then she asked if I wouldn't like to be involved in this project in some other capacity, say as the keynote speaker. Wawawee wa. The last speech I gave was at my wedding and I was quite sauced. But it was a speech to remember (or so they tell me) and it was totally off the cuff. I have a bit of time to prepare for this sucker and I have tons to say. And my soapbox just got a lot bigger.

Barbara Walters Goes Green

So today "the View" went green to celebrate St. Patti's day and Mother Earth. They did a little fashion segment, which was lackluster to say the least. They had a "green fashion guru" on who did not know her shit. She butchered Bahar Shahpar's name (sounded something like Shar Bar) and was raving about how awesome bamboo is (aren't we trying to move past bamboo now?! or at least try to make the chemically-laden process by which it is broken down and turned into fabric- this is rayon folks, call it bamboo or whatever you like- a little less toxic) and chose a less than stellar collection of stuff to show, considering what is out there now, in terms of badass eco-fashion.
Note to all of you people out there who are planning to do an eco-episode or issue or whatever: if you are gonna do it, do it right. Don't ask your stylist to educate her(him?)self about eco-fashion for a couple of days and expect them to be able to do a good job. Those of us who do know what is going on, we think you look stupid. We think you don't know your shit. Why don't you want an expert doing your research for you? I can't figure it out.
So what should this expert know? It is key, duh, to know the eco-fabrics that are out there. You need to know what shade of green something is. There is seldom a perfectly eco-friendly fabric out there, but you can get pretty close. How the fiber is grown (or collected- let's say, if it is recycled) how it is treated when turning it from raw fiber into fabric (often a very chemically laden process!!!) and how it is dyed are a few key questions to ask. What are the conditions in the factory like, where the fabric is woven. How far is the raw material from the fabric factory, does it have to travel a lot (travel takes fuel!) Then you want to know how the garment is produced. Does the fabric travel far to the factory. Does the factory have ethical labor practices. Do they create as little waste as possible in the manufacturing process (this is often up to the designer to design pieces that use the fabric efficiently) and do the goods have a long way to travel from the factory to your door?
Ok, then, and this is really important, is it badass? Because if it's not, who really cares about it. Good design is the best PR for any movement. Don't bother giving props to the same old boring shit. Don't bother making the same old shit. Believe me, there are enough people doing it. A well made, stylish, well fitting product is greener than a crappily-made ill-fitting piece, no matter what it is made of, because at least it has a purpose.
Ok, now that I got that off my chest, I just want to say that Barbara was wearing a shirt-dress from gominyc on todays show. It was a crazy striped neon green number from Turk & Taylor and she looked Badass. And on her toes were shoes made from veggie tanned leather (I will save that leather topic for another angry rant) which were also from gominyc. I am guessing that Babs has it going on and it is just her producers who need to do a little more homework.

Here I Go Again

I am a lean, green, blogging machine. Six days behind me of back to back buying for my little store, hours walking up and down the Javits Center, beautiful weather outside, endless chatter about retail stuff... Two more days left.
I am doing the fall buying (and some last-minute spring/summer buying) for my little East Village boutique. This is a super fun part about owning a store and super exhausting as well. In my endless quest for awesome eco-fashion, I have attended multiple trade shows and showroom appointments here in NYC. I have done a lot of buying and a lot of talking.
I am setting up this blog so that I can share all of my hard work with you. Not everyone can make it into my little store here in NYC, but you can find a lot of the stuff that I sell at a store near you, and if you can't, you can tell your favorite boutiques about the labels I carry and see if they can't get them in their shops. That way, you can support some of the awesome companies that I buy from and help them to grow and become a powerful force in the retail market.
Maybe you already know about Stewart Brown and Loomstate, but I have got tons of other eco-friendly fashions in my store.
For now, I will share a bit about the denim lines that I carry. I just ordered Lee Jeans (that's right, Lee) Gold Label Organic Cotton Denim. How cool is that? Aoki Jeans are quickly becoming a favorite and you can see them right now on the cover of Domino Magazine's March issue, modeled by the lovely Shalom Harlow. Try to tear my Del Forte Jeans off off me; for my booty, these are the best fit so far.... OK, we all know Loomstate, but I've got them and they are great. Anna Cohen did a smashing skinny trouser last season. And Kuyich, a great line from the Netherlands that includes tons of denim, should be coming some time soon.
Pictures will come soon... I know, all we really want to do is look at pretty pictures, but it is late and I must refuel.