One store is all white - from its shabby painted leather sofa to its upturned travel trunks and piled up water pipes as shelving. As the sandwich board perambulating outside puts it: "Maison Martin Margiela amongst us."
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Around the corner, Matthew Williamson has opened a store so bright, bold and sunny that it seems like a deliberate ying to the Belgian designer Martin Margiela's yang. With patterned cushions piled on pale sofas, graphic rugs, fluorescent dress rails set against a marble floor and a Chinese wall-covering dotted with crystal jewelry, Williamson's first boutique is as sweet and merry as bird song.
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But the two stores have one thing in common, their location in what has become the London epicenter of designer cool: Bruton Street. The quiet road is at right angles to Bond Street, the plate-glass emporium of top designer labels.
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The arrival last year of Stella McCartney's London store detonated a charge of hip to an area once devoted to art and antiques. Those galleries are still in residence - Haunch of Venison, for one, is still offering up such artists as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Richard Long, Bill Viola and Wim Wenders. So while Bond Street, like those other international designer avenues, is glossy but predictable, Bruton Street still has an eclectic mix, even in its fashion stores. For example, Holland Holland's sporting shops for men and women flank Brioni for upscale luxury tailoring.
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Williamson's arrival at No. 28 is like a bird of paradise fluttering into a bricks-and-mortar London street. A tank filled with tropical plants in the middle of the store adds to the feeling of what the designer calls "virtual nature," referring to hand-painted enhancement of the birds on Chinese silk, crystal spiders crawling round a Venetian mirror and changing room chairs smothered with purple silk peonies. The only area not quite as nature intended is the entrance to the customer cloakroom, where there is a collage of pin-ups, from Madonna to Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.
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The clothes, bags and shoes (some displayed inside a bird cage) are as vivid as the décor. Williamson's specialty is a sophisticated prettiness - like the ruffled halter chiffon top for £350 or about $650, and the bright white jeans with a floral waistband (£185) and cute patterned purses (£150).
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"I believe in this street's potential and I wanted to use this space," says Williamson, who is self-financed. "I couldn't have afforded Bond Street; it would have become a chocolate box and I would have had to make a statement as a little store among big brands."
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After seven years in business, Williamson is enjoying showing his full range of clothes, accessories, fragrance and scented candles - and meeting his customers. And if they find the glamorous top-of-the-range dresses too pricey, they can always go to Debenhams department store, where the designer has a more affordable range.
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Margiela won't be meeting the fans who find his destination store tucked into a former stables (1-9 Bruton Place). The reclusive designer did not even attend the dinner last week that launched this first London store, after Paris and Tokyo. But since Renzo Rosso of Diesel invested in his label, Margiela has been able to extend the retail range of his Maison Margiela concept.
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The first thing you see as you climb the stairs to where the artists Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon once painted, is a single white dress stretched over three torsos like a trio of singing nuns. Beyond a "wall" created from Belgian beer crates are deep, dimpled windows, where hay was once passed to the horses. Mighty molded doors, salvaged from a French apartment, conceal a dressing room where the mirror is surrounded with light bulbs, like a film star's dressing room.
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As with the surroundings, so it is with the merchandise: made-over old clothes melded with modern glamour. The unique hand-made pieces comprise broderie anglaise petticoats dyed black and made into dresses (£305) and men's sweat tops reworked into a single piece (£350). The full range of Margiela offerings are under one roof and include a tailored trench coat or well-cut shirt with detachable collar, to show the designer's classic side. The different labels at varying price levels go from Margiela's signature twin-toe sneakers (£95) to pin-striped pants with an elastic waist (£195) and a shaded cardigan (£265).
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The all-white store (even the coat hangers) invites graffiti, and when the designated wall is full, it will be photographed and painted blank again. The store proves how imaginatively Margiela has moved his image into retail, while keeping his distance - and his cool.
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Walking past the McCartney store with "Girls Girls Girls" in neon in the window and her appealing mix of pallid, pretty clothes, Bruton Street runs into a designer crossroads with Bond Street. Corner stores for Burberry, Hermès and Ungaro all show how those labels have been rejuvenated with a wide range of goods in airy spaces.
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The road then leads to Conduit Street - another axis of the more off-beat designer names. Those implanted here are Moschino, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood and Gibo, where Julie Verhoeven's quirky fairy-tale clothes emphasize the new whimsical retail spirit.
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Conduit Street also harbors Sketch, at No. 9, the baroque restaurant that is one of London's hip spots to eat (or at least be seen) when the shopping bug wanes.
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International Herald Tribune
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great news, you will sure have a great time (i'll try to ask my new client and see how it goes, we actually NEED a London young style update 
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that stella window display is the worst ever
expect to see me at sketch next... 
