Soho-Nolita-Noho

It's very easy to neglect a lot of the island and to spend days exploring and getting lost in Soho, Nolita and Noho. This is a real hub for interesting stores, cafes, restaurants and in particular retail.
Prince st, Spring st, Broome st, Lafayette st and Broadway are littered with a vast array of places to easily spend your money.





Mercer St
On one of our first days we headed to Mercer st which provided the chance to check out some big name brands including the likes of APC, 3.1 Phillip Lim, LV, Marc Jacobs and Prada - which runs for a whole block between Mercer and Broadway.
Some edgier brands can be found at stores such as Seven NY (below).



Rag and Bone
Rag & Bone is a brand we've followed for a while and their store looked great. Not too much stock, displayed in an uncluttered way with enough quirks to make it interesting.



Toward the front there were some great ties, gloves and accessories amongst denim, shirting and suits, while toward the back of the store a few chesterfields and fabric books gave the impression it was set up for a tailoring service.
Staff were a little busy so we weren't given too much assistance or clarification.
The 'no cameras' policy restricted us quite a bit, but for some good pics check out this.

For the girls there is plenty to look at including Agent Provocateur, which we had to visit.
With NYU just up the road, there were plenty of snappy students out and about, and this is one of the stomping grounds for Scott Schuman (the sartorialist).

It's an easy street to find, and after a few hours we decided to go hunting for some less obvious gems.

Lafayette St


Lafayette runs parallel to Broadway and it was where we stumbled upon LafCo hidden behind some scaffolding. This was one of the best of this style of store I'd ever been in. The staff were fantastic and very helpful. They stocked an extensive range of soaps, fragrances and candles under their house brand, as well as Italian brand Santa Maria Novella, which has apparently been around for some 600 years. Their candles in particular were very good.



Just down the street and the past the massive G-Star flagship (which we bypassed), there was In God We Trust, a store with an interesting mix of clothing, jewellery, shoes and accessories. It was in a cool cluster of stores that included a hole-in-the-wall florist, a few vintage stores and the Ladder 20 fire station - whose Dalmatian made friends with us.






Broadway
One rainy afternoon we were heading up Broadway, fighting the wind and rain, and stumbled into Uniqlo. A few days earlier one of the retailers had mentioned it was worth a look, and he wasn't wrong.
For a low priced department store this Japanese brand really delivers. Due to the season we were somewhat restricted, but their jeans (japanese selvedge), and basics were extremely impressive. All manner of knits and scarves in wool, cashmere and mixes were also on offer at very competitive prices.
2 hours later we were done, and laden up with 2 bags of goodies.



Across the road on Broadway I ducked into a newsagent and was very excited to see Aust magazine Men's Style on the shelves.

And flicking through the new Monocle it was fantastic to see a piece on Brisbane architect Paul Owen (Owen & Vokes), including a pic of him snapped in his black cotton Cloakroom suit.
Also Monocle had a piece on Richards & Spence (Adrian Spence is Brisbane interior designer and Cloakroom customer), and architects Donovan Hill (where our part-time house model James works, as well as a number of guys with pieces from us).
Brisbane was everywhere!




Around every corner there seemed to be a monument of note off in the distance.
Often when I'd lost my bearings I'd just try and find the Empire State Building and then I'd know which direction we were walking.