Shopping with experts: teenage hotspots in New York

Juicy couture (17)  

 

Having visited some cracking New York stores last week, the Women’s Room thought it would be useful to list a couple of good-to-know-about ones, should any of our readers be visiting with grumpy teenagers in tow.

 

The only market currently hardly affected by the economic downturn is that of the teenager, still happily shopping in Topshop, New Look and other havens of youthful consumerism, blissfully unaware of the meaning of the word recession. So it would seem in New York, where the giant new Juicy Couture flagship on Fifth Av evokes squealing and hysteria from visiting teenage girls as they realise they’ve reached their cultural home. I am not a fan but it is a great shop. Beautifully set out, spacious and engaging inside with fantastic display and carefully laid out clothes.

Great changing rooms, lovely labelling and covetable packaging also help, as well as very nice shop assistants. It’s like a very smart Topshop (and indeed there were many Topshop influences in the styling) with a more expensive interior. It was also full of bright eyed, happy teenage girls clearly having a good time. Yours will too, and will probably love you more for finding it for them. It is also just south of the Abercrombie & Fitch store that is also on the teenage retail Mecca trail.

John v 

But what about the boys? An altogether more cultural experience for them, one which middleageddad.com will also love (you can send them off on their own retail safari knowing they will be gone for hours) The new John Varvatos store in at 315 Bowery is the refurbished CBGB club, once the home to bands such as Blondie, The Ramones, Iggy Pop and other luminaries and Varvatos, who is a big music fan, has left all the old club details intact (but cleaner).

 The walls are layered with old posters, tickets, signed photos and other memorabilia. There are guitars, books, vinyls and other oddities for sale and there is a guitar and drum set on the original small stage permanently ready for anyone to get up and have a jam. Ringo Star often pops in for a bash when he’s in the area and there are in-store gigs once a month.

 

It is beautifully done and the library of old books, photos and records guarantee your boys will be lost in the heady, authentic atmosphere of rock/punk they can, literally, touch. If they get bored, there’s always the clothes, which are perfect for smartened up middle aged rockers and teenage rock-dudes alike.

 

 

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