kimair
frozen
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from today's nytimes...new york gets everything!!!
When it appeared on these shores five years ago, H&M, the Swedish fast-fashion company, whipped up a desire for designer looks at bargain prices. Zara, a Spanish competitor, followed suit with slightly sturdier construction and a higher price point. But not since Paul Revere's famous ride has the news that the British are coming had such import - at least not in fashion circles. Or at the very least not to those who are counting the days until Stella McCartney's one-off collection for H&M lands in stores in November.
Topshop, the retail chain best known for the Oxford Circle shop that attracts thousands of fashion-mad women a day, plans to open a temporary outpost in New York in August, inside the indie boutique Opening Ceremony in SoHo.
Though Topshop has been ahead of the curve in hiring some of London's hottest designers - Sophia Kokosalaki, Hussein Chalayan, Hamish Morrow, Markus Lupfer and Zandra Rhodes - to create exclusive collections for its stores, the company has not kept pace with H&M, which introduced its first such collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld last year.
"We are tremendously interested in the prospect of trading in New York, but we've always been a bit nervous," said Jane Shepherdson, Topshop's brand director. When she was approached by Humberto Leon, a founder of Opening Ceremony, she was intrigued by his idea.
The store, at 35 Howard Street, was conceived to feature the designs of a different place each year - those from Hong Kong, for example, or Britain, as Mr. Leon plans for this fall. The second floor of the shop will be dedicated to pieces from Topshop's Unique collection, which typically includes items like a pleated jersey puff skirt or a pink viscose dress with pockets costing $70 to $125. Among the other British labels that Opening Ceremony expects to stock are Hussein Chalayan, Peter Jensen and Ann-Sofie Back.
The store's concept smacks of the sort of marketing prowess behind the guerrilla concepts of Comme des Garçons, Nike iD and Colette - shops that open for a season or less in an out-of-the-way nook of Berlin or Warsaw and generate excitement by their limited window of existence.
But coming here was really a matter of opportunity, said Ms. Shepherdson, who has elevated Topshop's image from a retailer of junior apparel to a fashion authority, one that draws an international following of Anglophiles who snap up its Union Jack flip-flops and fitted ringer T-shirts with slogans like "I "heart" G.B."
"We will potentially look at other types of retail in the future," Ms. Shepherdson said. "We're dipping our toes in for now, if you will."
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so I'm not exactly bothered. I've never actually been to the Gateshead store. It's slightly bizarre that Gateshead has a posher store than Newcastle actually... 
