AllSaints Day

by Jeanne Chinard  • • • On a recent Sunday in the Merry Month of May in Manhattan, we had just left the (first annual?) New York City Dance Parade, which we had come across quite by accident. We had been carried down Broadway, swept up by a river of exuberant dancers from everywhere with every style - Argentinian to African, Merengue to Martha Graham. After the parade sadly ended, we continued strolling down Broadway until we spied a number of seriously affected hipsters (all pretending not to be seriously affected hipsters), coming out of a large store. • • • Expecting to see a new Apple store, we were surprised to find a two-story window filled from bottom to top with the most incredible collection of vintage sewing we had ever seen.  Row after row of glistening, shiny, black forms with brass wheels and sensuous curves – a celebration of the days when the handmade came from the well designed. • • • I remember being very small, sitting on the floor and watching my English/Irish mother, her hands flying at her cherished machine.  I would go with her when she shopped for patterns and fabric at the  5 & 10.  When she wasn’t whipping up chic sheathes and voluminous shirtwaist dresses for herself, she would be smocking exquisite little pink dresses for my sister and me to wear on Easter Sunday.  All that flooded through my head and I hadn’t even walked into the store. • • • But there we were, as another British invasion from the High Street decamped in Soho. So as incongruous as it was, we happily joined the flow of hipsters of all ages who exuded high voltage energy as we moved past the looms and presses that displayed everything from rolled up jeans to quirky boots and featherweight shirts. • • •  I found a soft, red plaid flannel shirt with a hood, traditional yet with a twist – a great choice for any guy who wouldn’t be caught dead in the short, skinny Thom Brownish pants, which were plentiful and looked great on the twenty something sales associates. For women, there were printed shirts and plaid dresses – deconstructed and draped at angles, yet still beautifully finished, not funky. I adored, but walked past the sweet, puffy micro mini skirts & made a beeline to a dynamite khaki raincoat with an unexpected ruffled collar that I could actually wear – and wear everywhere. • • •  And cool enough, AllSaints is the first store I’ve seen that used iPads as part of the displays, carefully placed around the store to provide online access to merchandise & information. You just know it’s only the beginning of what the iPad will do for retail. AllSaints isn’t new to the Sates. But its steam punk meets fashion vibe is a sexy, refreshing change from the sad, cloned, superbox mall brands that surround it on Broadway. • • • After you walk through a store like AllSaints, you realize that most American brands today aren’t suffering from a lack of sales, but from a serious lack of imagination. • • •   AllSaints 512 Broadway nyc  http://www.allsaints.com