April '04
Hint pays attention to retail

Even as he goes about the business of raising his visibility, the photo-phobic Martin Margiela averts attention. The Belgian designer recently opened Maison Martin Margiela in London, his first store in the city and his seventh worldwide, but has made the tiny, multi-level outlet so nondescript it isn't even marked on the outside. The only clues to its whereabouts are little signs like the one you see here, placed at nearby corners. Inconspicuous, and that's the point. Peeling paint, unfinished edges, walls made from discarded suitcases and other secondhand furniture make up the recycled interior, which was once a stable for horses, but now trades in menswear, womenswear and accessories. In the "graffiti room" shoppers can write on the walls, layering them with their own identities, which may, for future generations, be the only evidence the shop ever existed. 1-9 Bruton Place, +44 020 7629 2682.

Finally, a community where you can window shop in your underwear. Barneys gives its ancient placeholder on the web a much-needed kick in the arse, adding an online cash register where once there was none. Now even back-country Platinum cardholders can have, for example, this kitsch Takashi Murakami soccer ball ($395)—the first item that comes up in the e-shop, a bouncy reminder that the patented Barneys levity is at play even on the Internet. Sadly, although the cosmetics section is robust, and aside from some shiny Marc Jacobs bags in accessories, the majority of the offerings—men's and women's—is restricted, for now, to the in-house brand. Someone start a petition.
Once banished like the evil color that is beige, green is back, shooting like a weed from designer Bernhard Willhelm's fertile mind into his spring collection for the Roman house of Capucci. The off-beat label, once a staple of quintessential Italian style alongside Fellini films and Vespas, slid into oblivion two decades ago where it stayed before its resuscitation last year, with Willhelm at the helm, aptly. The Belgium-based German's spring collection offers a field of vivid verdant hues, from seafoam to forest, so that you can wear your political affiliation on your sleeve. -Suleman Anaya
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Study fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in NYC
 

With a Kawakubo-like shrug at convention, the Copenhagen-based menswear designer Henrik Vibskov—a graduate of Central St Martins and a 2003 Hyeres Fashion Festival participant—is bursting on the scene with irreverent garishness. Characterized by spray paint-bright colors, cartoonish prints and pajama-size shapes, his spring collection is plain goofy. Graffiti-scribbled sweatshirts are worn as scarves and pants are cut wide and bow-legged, a cheeky alternative to the straight leg world out there. Vibskov will also introduce a limited range of womenswear for fall, but more on that later. Available in London at Pineal Eye, 49 Broadwick Street, and in Paris at Colette, 213 rue Saint-Honoré, 33 (0) 6 88 69 28 29.
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