City Guide

So, having just come back from a trip to a handful of great cities, I figured it would be cool to type up a little guide to some of the bigger cities and what you can find there in terms of fashion and music. I'm also still on Berlin time, and so woke up at about 3:30 in the morning, so I have nothing else to do. So here goes...

LONDON

I won't talk about London much because most of us know what's what in the LDN. I think we all know the important places to hit up, so I wont really mention them. The only new place I went to was the New Era store, which is really awesome. I can't wear hats and look really dumb in them, but this is the kind of store that makes people like me angry. A bunch of awesome London-specific hats as well as some kickass superhero hats. They had Superman hats which were kind of lame, Batman hats which I think most of us have seen and are awesome, and my favs were the Spider Man hats. Other than that, though, it was all the usuals, seeing as I had little time, but all had some great new (to me) stuff in.

PARIS

Paris is interesting because they don't have much of a scene when it comes to our stuff. There are three names that come to mind when one mentions Paris, and those are Colette, La MJC and Sold Out!, only one of those being a physical store. However, Colette happens to be one of the coolest stores I've ever been to. The first floor has loads of tables with huge books on graffiti, toys, you name it. It also has a rather large music section, playing almost exclusively good dance music. Har may be happy to know that Ed Banger, Kitsune and co. are all well represented here, but even more so is the minimal scene. There is a wall of CDs from the likes of M_nus, Kompakt, and all the others. On the back wall there are six or so iPods with all of the CDs loaded on so you can listen to the CDs. They also have a little batch of records, and, while I saw a couple of goodies, they were pricy.

Which brings be to the problem with Colette: pretty much everything is overpriced there. Upstairs is where the fashion is, and you see many of the latest fashion for ladies which is awesome, and then you get to the streetwear corner (probably the most crowded area of the store). Here, the couple of Air Force 1s are rather lame but cost a lot. Same with the tees and jackets: maybe a couple things from good companies, but mostly dominated by BBC and stuff like it, which I happen to hate and I think most will agree with me on. However, Colette is most certainly awesome, and a good place as more of a museum than a store. Other than that, Paris, while a great city, is not so big on really good record stores or clothing stores.

KOELN

In terms of streetwear, nada. It's not a terribly big city and not one in which I would expect to find much streetwear, and, popping my head into a couple of stores that showed semi-cool shoes in the window, I found no stores with anything very special. However, that is not the reason I'm talking about it: Koeln is all about Kompakt. Kompakt has defined Koeln musically, and you can walk around hearing the sounds of various Kompakt records in your head.

My trip to Kompakt was a very big highlight. It's a massive store, which records from every label I've ever cared to look at spanning back years. They also, of course, have the freshest releases on display, and it's easy to spend half a day there just listening to new records on the turntables.

BERLIN

Berlin, being such a huge city, I will split into two: Former East and Former West Berlin.

WEST BERLIN

West Berlin contains one of the best stores in Berlin period: Solebox. Solebox is in Charlottenberg and very far from where all of the other stuff is, so it would not be in a typical 'SoHo' run, but is worth it (we were staying in Charlottenberg, so it wasn't out of the way for us). They have a deal with Nike SB and, because of this, have the biggest collection of the best dunks I've ever seen. They also have the best Adidas I have seen anywhere (including Adidas stores in both New York and Berlin!). It's hard to leave Solebox with only a couple of items, then, but somehow I managed. Aside from one of the best selections of shoes you may ever see, they have plenty of awesome clothes. Unfortunately, again, BBC and Ice Cream are prevalent here, but they also carry MHI stuff as well as other good brands. Hikmet, who owns the place, is really nice and will help you with anything.

Other than that, not much in terms of fashion in West Berlin. Kreuzberg has the Overkill Shop, which is not bad, but Kreuzberg is much better for records. The famous Hardwax is there, as are plenty of other record stores.

EAST BERLIN

...is where it's at. There's SoHo in New York and London, and then there is the area northwest of Alexanderplatz in Berlin. The highlight is certainly Wood Wood, which, along with Wood Wood stuff, carries the freshest in men's and women's fashion, including MHI's more expensive brother Maharishi. I'm sort of convinced I saw Richie Hawtin there, but I wasn't sure enough to ask. Anyway, aside from Wood Wood there is Trainer, which is Solebox's sister store, as well as Apartment, which sells tons of good stuff from Supreme and the like. Scattered throughout are stores which looked really cool, but I didn't have time to go to, as well as the 3rd Adidas store I saw in Berlin and a Comme des Garcons a little north of the area. (All in Mitte, sort of boardering Prenzlauer Berg). Mitte also has plenty of great record stores, but again, I was so crunched for time that I couldn't possibly have visited many of them.

Obviously there is a lot more than that, and most reading this I will see in person and talk to about all these places, but I didn't want this to be too long, so it's very kurz. It's now very obvious to me that, in terms of clothing, there are four places you want to be: New York, London, Berlin and Tokyo. Speaking of, hopefully James can update us on Tokyo when he gets back.