Retail Refugees

The “Wish you Were Here” swap project kicked off its New York leg over the weekend and will run through September 13.  For those uninformed, it is a really interesting project that brings 15 independent retail shops from Carnaby St. in London across the pond to NYC´s Lower East Side.  “This is a unique event with an exchange of 30 independent boutiques reflecting signature trends in the form of fashion, accessories and lifestyle elements set within exciting ‘popup’ shops. All designers taking part in this project will be completely new to each city, bringing an element of welcome surprise emphasizing each other’s desirable design diversity. The Newburgh Quarter and Lower East Side have, for several decades, been renowned for their individual styles – edgy, vibrant, fun and punchy, also in their own way, iconically metropolitan.”

Men.Style.Com checked out the list of participants and offered their opinions, “Carnaby Street may not be the Mod haven it once was, but there are still some decidedly rakish options. Polka-dot and repp stripe ties from Peckham Rye, preppy standards liked a piped gingham-check blazer by Hurwundeki, and the Savile Row-on-acid tailoring of Social Suicide, whose Technicolor paint-and-patch-laden jackets (pictured)—more London ’09 than ’69—are cut from blocks used by the late, great Row reinvigorator Tommy Nutter.”

Check out the offial page here