As that corridor between Thanksgiving and Christmas approaches, Gotham's newest stores will be pushing the retail envelope, as always, determined to be the biggest, boldest or baddest – in the best way.
Lots of retailers renovated, expanded or spawned new divisions. There's the usual assortment of high-fashion names, but more hipster foreign brands are infiltrating the mix. Here are a select number of the buzziest newcomers, by Manhattan neighborhood.
MIDTOWN
Billabong (surfing)
Element (skating)
1515 Broadway, between 44th and 45th Streets
The Australian surfing and skating brands set up their first connecting East Coast flagships, 5800 square feet in Times Square under MTV's studios.
Build-A-Bear
565 Fifth Avenue, at 46th Street
A fanciful 22,000-square-foot megastore where kids and collectors can build their own bears, design their clothes or customize T-shirts.
Chanel
15 E. 57th Street
Peter Marino brings his understated textured chic to update the eternally sophisticated brand's 12,000-square-foot flagship.
Fila
Madison Avenue, between 43rd and 44th Streets
Racing curves and reflective metal swoop around the curvy 4000-square-foot store designed by Giorgio Borruso.
Jacob & Co.
48 E. 57th Street, near Park Avenue
This store, conceived as a high-tech diamond mine, is brilliant in every sense of the word. Walk past the grooved white façade and get blinded by multi-faceted dazzle mounted on coal-colored velvet.
Missha
516 Fifth Avenue, at 43rd Street
Clean-cut laboratory-like decor sells its own brand of reasonably priced and divine-smelling cosmetics.
Nintendo World
10 Rockefeller Plaza, at 48th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues
A modernist minimal clubhouse with a variety of play stations, pods and screens – the soundtrack is pure GameBoy.
SOHO
adidas
610 Broadway, at Houston
The seller of sportswear had its in-house design team create this 29,500-square-foot store, which is imbued with a minimalist ethos – all the walls and furniture are black or white, which turns the product into the focal point of attention.
Burton Snowboards
106 Spring Street, at Mercer
A cutting-edge 4600-square-foot lodge for the Vermont company also has a “cold room” where shoppers can test gear against winter conditions and check out snowboarding animation.
Cloak
10 Greene Street, near Canal
Reviving sexy 1960s British menswear in an appealingly masculine shop: comfortable antiques, used books to borrow and a dressing room hidden behind a bookcase.
Diesel Kids
416 W. Broadway
Goes cool – not goo-goo! – for denim and two-toned hightops.
Oakley O Store
113 Prince Street, near Greene Street
This 2000-square-foot flagship houses tech-y sportswear to coordinate with its avant-garde shades, now available with MP3 players.
MEATPACKING, WEST VILLAGE
202
75 Ninth Avenue, at 16th Street
Nicole Farhi's new boutique-bistro with British fish and chips, leather club chairs and bubble and squeak.
An Earnest Cut & Sew
821 Washington Street, between Gansevoort and Little West 12th Street
Custom jeans in two hours, coffee bar for while-you-wait.
Catriona MacKechnie
400 W. 14th Street, near 9th Avenue
Superlatively, lacily, sparkly nothings have never been so divine – or expensive.
Charles Nolan
30 Gansevoort Street
Be-ribboned with whimsy, this former Ellen Tracy and Anne Klein designer has a cheerful residential salon crowded with bright clothes, colorful shoes, great vintage books and other bright ideas.
Henry Beguelin
18 Ninth Avenue, at 13th Street
Four-figure furs and other fancy finery in this over-the-top boutique with leather-embossed floors and ponyskin counter.
EAST VILLAGE AND NOLITA
CoCo and Delilah
115 St. Marks Place, near Avenue A
Trendy girlie-wear and fancy denim goes off-line.
NikeiD 255 studio
255 Elizabeth Street
Walk-ins can design their Nike custom kicks with the help of a “sneaker scientist.”
Phurniture Inc.
8 Bond Street
Conglomerate of three independent furniture designers with modernist flair.
Rugby
99 University Place, near 12th Street
Ralph Lauren's new teen-to-first-job-preppy line.
And then there are all those other New Yorky fashion brands, the eager out-of-towners determined to make it here and a great many noteworthy expansions and redesigns.
Abercrombie & Fitch
Fifth Avenue at 56th Street
Apple
36th Street and Fifth Avenue
Coach
Madison Avenue and 57th Street
Christian Louboutin
59 Horatio Street, at Greenwich Street
Celo
100 Wooster Street
Lacoste
134 Prince Street
Puma
421 W. 14th Street
Hickey Freeman
Broadway and Pine Street
Sephora
45 E. 17th Street at Union Square
There's no better time to see exciting new retail in New York than this December – until next December.
Experience New York yourself. Attend StoreXpo, December 7-8, 2005. For more information, visit www.storexpo.info.
Victoria Rowan is VM+SD's New York editor. Her tours through the shops, museums, windows, offices and streets of the city are a regular feature of the magazine.