archive
For nearly a year now, vintage fashion has had a cozy abode along Williamsburg’s Grand St corridor.
No, literally an abode. The interior setup of Grand St boutique Franny and Roey is evocative of a 1960s bedroom, styled somewhat in homage to the mise-en-scène of near namesake J.D. Salinger’s 1961 novel “Franny and Zooey,” according to owner Ilyane Roey.
Vice Magazine’s Halloween 2009 throwback to 1994, my campy Debut-era Björk-era hairdo as part of my costume for the event, and the Portishead and Veruca Salt-laden playlist I had blasting as I was twisting my hair into the requisite pin curls, got me to thinking: are we—meaning myself and my fellow Gen XY Brooklynites—getting ahead of ourselves in the current iteration of the 20-year fashion cycle?
Fashion trends of the past half-century often show recyclage from looks seen two decades earlier. Cases in point: the vivid hues and synthetic materials popular in the 1980s got their start in the 1960s. The baggy pants, baby tees and visible navels of the late 1990s? As a high schooler, I raided my mom’s closet on more than one occasion to cash in on such ensembles. I was in the high school class of 1999. My mom? Class of 1977.
Now, as whatever-you-want-to-call this decade comes to an end, baggy sweaters atop stretch pants and slouchy ankle boots have made their grand return onto urban high streets and trickled their way down into small-town strip malls across America. This all makes sense in terms of 1989 redux. Check out the cover to Paula Abdul’s 1988/89 single “The Way That You Love Me.” Ten-odd years ago, as we were cracking open our cans of Surge and grooving out at house parties to Moby, the more blunt among us might have said to someone working the off-the-shoulder look, “Unless you’re being ironic [or going to an 80s-themed party], take that off!” In 2009, not so much.
Mondrian/Bjork Halloween 2009.
Ah, Oct 31: the day when creative types everywhere in the US bask in their eccentricity, and their one-time high school tormentors are probably content to wear a prefab costume found on a rack alongside “Sexy Credit-Default Swapper” and “Sponge Boob Square Panties.”
But intrepid Halloween folk know, prefab isn’t prefabulous. And current economic conditions make DIY costumes all the more worthwhile. I came up with a Piet Mondrian-inspired costume for Halloween 2009.
Opened not long after the dramatic economic collapse of autumn 2008, discount designer store Peachfrog is coming up on its one-year anniversary party. In that time, with stock priced up to 90% off retail, the Williamsburg shop, located on N 10th St between Bedford and Berry, has become a magnet for bargain hunters from all around the Tri-State metro area.
Case in point: as I was interviewing metal sculptor-slash-Peachfrog-co-founder Bill Norton late Thursday afternoon, a petite middle-aged shopper piped in, “I came in from Freeport!” That’s in Nassau County on Long Island.
The store’s dirt cheap designer apparel, accessories, home goods and cosmetics have gotten press in several publications, including The New York Times, as well as in local Chinese, Japanese and Polish-language papers, Norton points out.
The Wrecords by Monkey design team self-portrait. Courtesy WRecords by Monkey
Getting Into the Groove
Inspired by last week’s emerging music fest CMJ, I decided to check out Patrick Chirico and Brian Farrell, the designing duo behind Williamsburg-based accessories line WRecords by Monkey (WBM), who recycle vinyl, and craftily “bridge the worlds of fashion, art and music.”