FashionEtc.com November 22nd, 2024

Add another stop to your lower Broadway shopping itinerary: Canadian retailer Aritzia opens today on Broadway and Spring, and it’s worth a visit.

The inside of the store alone is impressive: 10,000 square feet over two floors with architectural wooden slabs as the lower-level ceilings and plenty of light on the second floor. It’s hard to imagine the space as the former Gap that used to occupy that corner. As far as the clothes go, Aritzia offers eight in-house brands, from the vintage-inspired Le Fou to the more youthful TNA, all at ridiculously reasonable prices: Think Topshop with a dash of Club Monaco.

A brand named after the adorable Spanish term of endearment is enough to make us take note. Throw in a designer who honed her chops at Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s great contemporary line, Elizabeth and James, and an obsession with textiles, and we’re hooked.

The brand launched for Spring 2011, and is already being sold at Nordstrom stores and a handful of online boutiques, but expect to see the pieces hanging on racks in New York boutiques soon—they’re better in person, with fantastic textures like a bright violet fringed minidress, a cropped jacket with cagelike leather strips, and silky blouses in an original print made in collaboration with a London-based artist and textile designer.

The now-shuttered Lutz & Patmos may have been a sweater-lover’s dream brand, but M. Patmos, the solo effort from Marcia Patmos, offers everything devotees loved about the former brand—and then some.

For her resort 2012 collection, Patmos created a collection inspired by travel (it is a resort collection, afterall), which meant everything was packing-friendly (like some great, pre-rumpled pieces in a silk-linen blend) and pieces often served double duties, like a double-layered tank that reversed or knit cardigans with built-in scarves that buttoned off. A long black skirt and matching asymmetrical tank made an evening-worthy ensemble when worn together, but worked perfectly as more casual separates, too.