Is NYC Experiencing a Fashion Retail Renaissance?
A mini shopping digest
Fashion people love to proselytize about the death of retail in New York. Chalk it up to the very public decline of department stores and the egregious rent hikes. But if they zoom in, they will see the future in the collective of multi-brand concept stores and vintage shops that are challenging the current buying system. Although they are of varying sizes, what these stores have in common is a forward-thinking, non-conformist attitude that gives them the rare ability to make even the most jaded shopper excited about buying clothes. You can actually say that NYC is experiencing a fashion retail renaissance. There are many places to go but few can claim to have a unique point of view.
Ahead, I share a few examples of stores doing it right. I wasn’t around for the days of Barneys and Opening Ceremony, so these give me the chance to experience them vicariously.
TUMBAO
Blink and you might miss TUMBAO’s sprawling space in the basement of a four-story building on Orchard Street. The brainchild of Valentina Pozo, TUMBAO emerged as a curator of Latin American designers in 2020. Pozo understands how people want to interact with clothes today: up close and personal, so she arranged the products—which range from trendy accessories to genuinely-cool clothes—in a style that mimics the layout of art exhibitions. With that, she’s made it very clear that these are things worth looking at. TUMBAO houses brands like fonseca, BANZO and GENES.