A weekend style series covering the hottest media trends, business, culture and shopping.
Dear FBS,
I had to shift this newsletter, which was scheduled for Friday on my A-Journal Deskplanner, to Sunday. I got back just a few days ago from New York to rainy fall weather. My bag is full of PFW brand reviews and observations, but before sending those, I wanted to send you this nugget of news:
Paris Fashion Week has been full of cosplay and some imagination. Yet, a lot of designers chose to look backwards for their collections (Vêtements, who literally presented a Balenciaga mashup, and cut the runaway bride’s skit short).
But where familiarity may have stopped some designers from achieving potential, it’s pushed others even further: The Row.
Surely, you’ve heard there’s a new store in town despite the whole thing being very hush-hush (I know).
I swung by today on my way to Les Editeurs in Odéon to write this letter.
The Row opens it’s first store in Paris.
The boutique is on 1 Rue du Mont Thabor in the 1e arrondissement. It’s safe to say the brand had quite the opening. Kendall Jenner brought a horde of paparazzi to the storefront on Tuesday while shopping. She was one of their first flagship clients.
The store experience is, well, interesting.
You have to ring a quiet doorbell to go in. That is, the doorbell doesn’t actually make any noise, it just slides the door open.
Anyway. As I walked in, the bellman asked me if I worked there? Which I found to be a strange way to greet a guest, then he followed up his question with a request to not take any pictures. Okay then!
I am glad I went in during the first week of the store opening. You could tell the store clerks were still getting themselves organized and wiping the mirrors clean.
Although this was a store in Paris, most clerks talked to me in English, which could have been the point of the bellman after all.
And it’s a very strong point to make at hand: for The Row to truly succeed in Paris, it’ll have to adapt to the French market. Otherwise it could risk to be seen as the expensive American brand.
I’m sure it’ll succeed. But I am saying McDonalds didn’t add canéles on the menu for nothing.
In fact one of the entertaining points of the brand at play here was the friction and dichotomy that was happening at the store between the Anglophone clients, and a French mom clad in Chanel ballet-flats and Dior poncho soothing her crying baby, order a cappuccino, and try on this season’s deboned corset dress (shown below) that hung as online avant-première at the boutique.
The Financial Times reported The Row’s revenue estimate between $250mn and $300mn in 2023. The crowd inside was both gossipy and intimate at the same time. There’s a coffee bar in the back (they sell Madeleines), which you can order for delivery within the store. It’s not as free per se, as asking for a cappuccino while shopping at Saint Laurent. Yet I do imagine (and hope) that if you’re actually shopping, the brand would give you the coffee for free. You can also take the coffee to go.
After ordering some caffeine to take in the store, a barista in a crisp white dress shirt that did not have a single wrinkle in sight, delivered a 6 euro café that was finished with a leaf as artwork. Again I was not allowed to take a picture.
So as I pulled out my phone to read the Financial Times article I’ve linked above, it felt like I had at least one store clerk reading me out to make sure I didn’t photograph clients. Of course I would never do that, unless either someone else did it or a celebrity walked in.
Joking, I really wouldn’t do that.
So what about the clothes?
One of two things can happen when you walk into a boutique to shop, you’ll either be seen, or you’ll feel seen. My experience was the latter; the clothes aren’t really very complicated, they’re just really exceptional in quality. Which is a kick forward to the point at hand: the clothes.
The stealth wealth clothes were sublime, if you’re shopping for beautiful fabrics and casual luxury. The wools and the cashmere’s were soft and cosy. I liked the proportions of the jeans: not skinny, not overly baggy. The denim jacket was blended with cashmere. And the black derbies just simple and overall appealing. You know, not too bulky, not too slim, not even too designer.
Proportionally, the clothes are a lot to desire for.
There was a muted Chanel-esque construction to a black jacket that would explain why the Wertheimer brothers and L’Oréal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers have invested in the brand. Or why there have been rumours that a perfume or some skincare might be on the way.
I tried to find said Chanel-ism of a jacket online so I could show you, but it turns out it is a non-listed boutique exclusive.
Maybe it’s a little pretentious. But there seemed to be an established sense of playfulness to the intimacy.
The Row is a brand known for instilling an atmosphere where non-party prevails, where people talk in lowered voices, and where attention to detail and focus are part of the DNA.
Clearly Chanel is really into that modus.
As I sat in the couch observing the crowd coffee in hand, Nicolas Turko, VP of Brand Identity & Marketing for the brand, walked in wearing the $32 NY Yankees MoMa hat to show a flock of clients he’d rounded up the store. They ogled and gushed over the collection. One girl carrying a Prada belt bag kept coming back to this Fletcher jacket.
A few of them let out a couple dispersed laughs as they engaged in chatter. Where sometimes Paris fashion can feel a little stuffy or lazy, it was a touch of delight in the quietness of it all.
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