In the future, Andy Warhol once said, "All department stores will become museums, and all museums will become department stores." This has already happened: see the Prada store on Broadway, the former location of the Guggenheim Museum's SoHo branch. It's also occurred at Christian Louboutin, the French purveyor of $900 classic fuck-me pumps, the NYT's Thursday Styles section reveals. Here, the shoes are displayed fetishistically in cases, with red carpet and mirrors... yet, they are not available.
Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson reveals a scene of hysterical tourists and WASPS demanding to buy them. But there's nothing left in their size! Or anybody's size!
"There is simply nothing," [sales clerk] Bubble lamented with an oversize shrug. "Your size is the most popular one. I wish I could sell you some shoes. All we have is 5, 6 and 40... We don't know anything! We have no computer. We don't know if they have anything on Horatio," Bubble said, referring to the downtown Louboutin boutique, "or at Bergdorf, or in Los Angeles."The Louboutin store has surpassed the outmoded task of selling shoes. Now all they need to do is create a demand; the sales are beyond the point:
"We want since two days!" the man bellowed, the brass buttons on his nautical blazer melting in fright.And so the department store has become the museum. But has anyone been to the Museum of Modern Art Store lately? They've got some rad scarves for sale.His wife let out a visceral moan and gnashed her perfect teeth; her eyes rolled upward in despair as she clutched in rueful hands the wrong size. For a moment she resembled the anguished Mary of Michelangelo's Pietà — only evil.
Open-Toed Fetishes (and More) [NYT]
New York Times Critical Shopper stand-in Cintra Wilson takes a look at Phi, the Soho clothier that "showcases the artistry of the meticulously trained Norwegian designer Andreas Melbostad." Then it gets less penetrable: A reader dared us to translate the piece's most harrowing paragraph.