Shiniest of the Big Apple

VM+SD will present its fourth annual New York Stores of the Year award next week during StoreXpo. VM+SD associate publisher Carole Winters and editor Steve Kaufman and ST Media Group president Tedd Swormstedt will be on hand to honor two stores that best represent the challenges in design and innovation that represent the New York market.

The presentation will be part of the annual PAVE gala, to be held Tuesday evening, December 6, in The Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The event will begin at 7 p.m. Tickets — $500 per seat, $5000 for a table of 10 — are now on sale through the PAVE office. Tickets are tax deductible and benefit the Student Design Competition winners. Email pave1@swbell.net or call 314-645-0701. More information is available on www.p-a-v-einfo.

Past winners of the coveted crystal apple have been the Apple store in SoHo and the Alexander McQueen store in the Meatpacking District (2002); the Ferragamo flagship on Fifth Avenue and the Carlos Miele boutique in the Meatpacking District (2003); and Bloomingdale’s SoHo and Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue (2004).

This year’s winners will be cited at the PAVE gala next week and featured in a cover story in the January issue of VM+SD.

For more information on StoreXpo, to register for the conference sessions and to attend the trade show in the Javits Center, go to www.storexpo.info.