Happy New Year and Winter Sale!

Now that we’ve all given 2011 the bum’s rush, what’s the plan for 2012? First up is our Winter Sale where we suit action to words, “Out with the old.” It’s a great opportunity to plug any holes you’ve found in your winter wardrobe at reduced prices. Then it’s “In with the new” as warm weather clothing begins to arrive in lighter weights and brighter colors. We’ve already started scheduling trunk show events, too, where you can consult one-on-one with your favorite designer or just get an overview of the latest thinking. Check our special events page to see what’s coming up. Next we’ll be expanding PlainClothes Online so that our web customers will have more buying options, and, of course, we will be searching out every lead to find new, exciting and better products for you, our loyal and discerning customers. As you can see, we plan to be busy in 2012. Pay us a visit and let us know how we’re doing. Happy New Year.

Cider & Cookies

Santa doesn’t work alone. We see lots of his helpers here every year excitedly picking out gifts and enthusiastically wrapping them up, trying to make sure every gift is just right for its recipient.

Whew. That’s a lot of work.

Santa, we realized, usually gets a bonus for his efforts– a plate of cookies and a glass of milk at nearly every stop. Not so Santa’s helpers. They don’t even get to ride in the sleigh.

So a few years back we decided to reward them ourselves, with Christmas cookies and hot apple cider.

Soon we discovered that many of Santa’s hardworking helpers appreciate the treat and so our December cookies and cider Saturdays have become a PlainClothes tradition.

Now folks are even asking for our cider recipe. So here it is, Steve’s own (to give credit where credit is due) Christmas cider concoction.

If you’re in our neighborhood this holiday season, stop by and try it.

Christmas Cider Concoction
1/2 gallon unfiltered apple cider
2 teaspoons brown sugar
peel of 1 orange
6 cinnamon sticks
15 cloves

Put all ingredients in a pot of appropriate size and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and serve.

Savage Beauty

If you’ve always thought that clothing design is for sissies, empty-headed and giddy, this retrospective of the career of Alexander McQueen currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum will change your mind.

Up close his creations are magnificent– boldly executed, finely detailed, and wonderfully, often shockingly, imaginative.

Step back and look again. These are not clothes many women would wear. Instead they are meant for the rapacious female creatures of nightmares– powerful, preying, sinister and at the same time mesmerizingly beautiful and seductive.

Savage Beauty is a tour de force of McQueen’s remarkable imagination and well worth seeing. But be forewarned, there is nothing happy here.

A July Retreat

 July 9, 2011

The higher the temperature gets outside, the less people want to think about clothes, so time out for summer vacation.

We’ve been cooling off in the North Carolina mountains this week and as often happens we’ve spent some off-hours on a busman’s holiday. This time we visited Flat Top Manor the vacation home of Moses Cone, one of the founders of the hugely successful denim manufacturer Cone Mills.

The house itself is not remarkable, but it commands a view for miles around and the view alone is worth the trip. The view and the masses of rhododendron in bloom this time of year, that is. Happily, this textile mogul was also a philanthropist. He and his wife bequeathed the property to their home city, Greensboro, which subsequently passed it on to the National Park Service.

If you are meandering down the Blue Ridge Parkway in the vicinity of Blowing Rock, go see.

Sylvia Heisel’s Rental

Longtime designer and friend of PlainClothes, Sylvia Heisel is full of ideas and that creativity just has to come out. Usually she expresses herself through the clothes she designs, but recently frustration pointed her in another direction.

The sleek apartment she and husband Scott moved into just a year ago became a renter’s nightmare– a brand new building in which high-style fixtures fell off the walls while pleas for maintenance were ignored. Finally, a crew setting up scaffolding outside cracked the enormous sheet of glass that was their only window on the world, resulting in a rather skewed view of same.

Again, no help from management.

Frustration and anger mounted, but instead of turning negative and sour for the duration of their lease, Sylvia and Scott decided to vent by aggressively redecorating the place.  Ergo, frustration became a catalyst for creativity and, miles of art tape later, a remarkable art installation was the result.

New York magazine took a look, was impressed, and has put pictures in the May 2011 issue.

As we said, Sylvia is full of ideas. We can’t wait to see what she does next.

Joan Vass

Joan Vass was not your average designer. With no formal design training her early career path took her into the art world, alongside her painter/sculptor husband, as a writer, editor and museum curator.

As a hobby, she began to knit, then to design hats and sweaters to be knitted. Before long she discovered there were quite a few women anxious to knit up her creations in exchange for the flexibility of working from home, so she built up a cottage-industry–  by women, for women– to produce her designs.

But the small number of pieces that can be made in this way, individually and by hand, and the high cost of the resulting products dictated that Joan Vass’ quirky, handmade, limited-edition pieces could only reach a fortunate few. So, in 1984, she joined forces with a large South Carolina knitting company to produce a distinctively Joan Vass collection of practical, wearable, knitted cotton separates under the label Joan Vass USA.

We were then scouring the market prior to opening PlainClothes. Just as we do now, we were looking for clothes with style, quality, wearability and a fresh point of view; clothes that will help us simplify our complicated lives.

Eureka. That’s just what Joan Vass USA was– the right clothes at the right time. We bought the collection immediately and enthusiastically in time for the PlainClothes opening. To our delight the collection became a mainstay of the wardrobes of many women who shopped with us in our early days and remained so for several years.

Eventually Joan Vass USA became so popular that freestanding shops were opened across the country. We are happy to have found Joan Vass and introduced her to our customers long before that happened.
Designer Joan Vass died on January 6, 2011. Ave atque vale.

Luciano Barbera: REALLY Made in Italy

Luciano Barbera believes in labels. The “Made in Italy” label sewn into his garments means just that — made in Italy every step of the way.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? After all, for decades his family’s mill near Milan has produced, slowly and painstakingly, luxurious fabrics sought out by the creme-de-la-creme of fashion designers.

Sewn in Italy from its own fabrics, the Barbera men’s and women’s collections reflect the style, elegance and uncompromising craftsmanship that as consumers we have come to expect as the hallmark of things Italian.

Of course, not everyone thinks like Barbera. There are cheaper, quicker ways to operate: less expensive fabrics aren’t necessarily bad, and low-wage workers in third-world countries do need jobs, too. Business, after all, is business. And just between us, who needs a Ferrari when a Cinquecento will get you there?
After heated debate the Italian Parliament has passed a bill spelling out what’s required for a clothing maker’s garment to qualify for the “Made in Italy” label: whereas there are four stages in the production process, two must be completed in Italy.

Yes indeed, that’s an improvement over no requirements at all, but barely. For Barbera and others whose efforts have helped to give the “Made in Italy” label its current dominance over the world of snob appeal, what a disappointment. They worry that without stringent rules the label will lose its cachet.

That may be the way of the world, but we hope not. As you know, we have a soft spot for anyone who is determined to make his product the best, and we cheer those folks on any way we can, so, to no one’s surprise, we will be showing you the Barbera Women’s Collection for Spring 2011. Not just made in Italy, but made entirely in Italy.

Happy New Year.

Time for us all to take our pulse and and see if we’ve survived the hectic holiday season. Time to put away the trees and trimmings and unpack our cold-weather coats, hats, gloves and sweaters.

We have such a short window of opportunity here for wearing anything warm and fuzzy that it’s now or never. And in our part of the world, cold weather coincides with sale time, creating the ideal buy now/wear now opportunity as a bonus for buyers.

Shopkeepers know that spring collections will be arriving any day now, so for us it’s out with old and in with the new, and for our lucky customers that means bargains to be had. But our Winter Sale ends February 5, so take advantage of it now.

Cotton Up

While we’ve been focused on the glamour and glitz of the new spring collections, trouble has been developing elsewhere in the clothing world: costs are going up, and how.

Case in point, cotton… that fiber we use to dress men, women and children in everything from diapers to denim jeans to men’s elegant evening shirts. Shockingly, the price of cotton has nearly doubled since this time last year. Suddenly it’s no longer politically incorrect to be singing “I wish I was in the land of cotton”, at least into the ear of your broker.

So, what happened? Basically, when the economy took a dive so did the demand for cotton which caused many growers to change to crops for which demand stayed high. Result? Less cotton.

Then, too, this year’s floods and droughts have been unusually brutal worldwide. Result? Less cotton.

But surprise, surprise: the economic climate has begun to improve and demand for cotton has bounced back much more quickly than anyone predicted. Result? Prices have skyrocketed. Suddenly cotton costs more than it has since Reconstruction. (If you don’t know what that is, you must not be a Southerner.)

Textile and clothing manufacturers are having to hunker down and figure out ways to cope. Most likely we’ll soon be seeing fewer 100% cotton fabrics and more blends instead. And don’t be surprised if you see synthetics suddenly being touted as “new” or “better than ever”.

Remember the last time synthetics were center stage? It was the ’70s, the heyday of the polyester leisure suit. Do you suppose that’s what’s ahead? A new and updated synthetic microfiber suit from Brooks Brothers or Ralph Lauren, maybe?

Ouch. We hope not. But we do look forward to seeing what kind of new ideas emerge from this crisis. And we’re not just whistling “Dixie”.

Tea and hoopla

Anyone who has visited New York knows it’s a city that pulses with energy and opportunity, ideas and aspirations.  (Though naysayers claim that it’s all moved to Brooklyn.)  For buyers like us trying to cram as much as possible into the work day that means starting early and ending late, getting too little sleep and running on adrenaline.

This particular trip also required time spent trying to dodge all the hoopla and  security in place for the bigwigs in town to attend the in-session United Nations.

Consider the scenario: you have a one o’clock appointment at a building conveniently situated in the middle of the block.  You arrive a little early and reach the nearest intersection only to find police and barricades blocking all entry, so you go around the block and try to approach from the other side. No luck there either.

Questioning other equally frustrated passers-by you find out that some president- maybe ours, maybe theirs, maybe popular, maybe not- is stopping in the area for a photo op,  so a generous perimeter has been cordoned off for the occasion by city, state, national and international security forces who will only say, ” Come back later.”

You whip out your cellphone, call your waiting appointment and begin to apologize.

“That’s okay,” you are told.” The designer you want to see went out to pick up lunch an hour ago and can’t get back here either. Can you come tomorrow instead?” So much for your carefully planned schedule.

A rather roundabout way, I’m afraid, to explain why we are always looking for an oasis in this city, a place to sit down, calm down, take a deep breath and regroup. But during this hectic week I discovered just such a place, a lovely, light and airy Chinese tearoom, Radiance Tea House and Books. This is the perfect place to order a simple pot of tea (from an enormous menu of choices) as an afternoon pick-me-up or as an accompaniment to a light lunch, dinner or snack.

The staff is friendly and helpful. If you know nothing about tea or Chinese food, don’t hesitate to throw yourself on their mercy. They will advise you well and thank you for visiting their haven.

Radiance Tea House and Books
158 West 55th Street
Open everyday from 11 AM
www.radiancetea.com