Free Association

In the Fashion & Style section of The Times this week there is an interesting article about a boutique in California called Free City.

800 Very Unsquare Feet

Nina Garduno, a fashion industry veteran opened Free City with the idea to "make things with the simplest elements with the highest of possibilities.” The boutique sells vintage bicycles, jeans, T-shirts, and also "functions as a gathering space." The article discusses the idea of fashion with regard to big corporations and small boutiques and the idea of authenticity. The article talks about the way in which fashion has been redefined.

"But in another way, Ms. Garduno may have instinctively realized that fashion was being redefined. It was no longer strictly about the clothes. It was, as a number of executives grasped, about the accessories. More farsighted individuals recognized that fashion’s ability to confer status or taste was illimitable and, indeed, could be transmitted through other forms, like a style of cellphone, and even by more abstract notions, like authenticity.

Several stores were on the edge of this wave, none more so than Colette in Paris and Corso Como in Milan, which sells fashion as well as books and CDs. But Ms. Garduno believes these stores are no longer innovative, in part, she says, because the shopping experience has grown static and in part because people have developed an almost free-associative view of authenticity.

This just means you can’t get into peoples’ heads so easily, or, for that matter, dazzle them with a few loaded words, as a number of big companies have recently tried to do with advertisements. The Gap’s current ads, with “peace” and “love” in gold, really resemble the style of her hand-printed graphics.

But for something to be perceived as authentic, that value has to be communicated cleanly through every detail — from the quality of the wash, if it’s a T-shirt, to the integrity of the physical environment. This is the almost visceral sense you get when you enter Free City. Not to sound crunchy, but you feel the love."

The article poses an exciting perspective about the idea of shopping and fashion that I thought we could apply to the Communal Closet Online as well as to the future Communal Closet! Essentially, Garduna reveals that

"It’s about the experience. I’m interested in having someone walk out of Free City and having had an experience. That’s what matters. They could buy a cheaper bicycle or T-shirt anywhere.”

So ladies, in regard to the present and future of the Communal Closet (both in cyberland and in real time) what kind of experience is it that we are looking to encounter ourselves and to convey to (potential readers/shoppers)?