Tim Leamy of Sebastian’s Closet in Dallas is positive. “At the end of the day, retailers just live on optimism and hope for the next sale,” he told me. “If we don’t, if we start singing the mantra of doom and gloom … what alternative do we have than to be as positive as we [...]

The first thing I asked Hickey’s design director Aaron Levine when Elise Diamantini and I visited the Hickey offices this week was, “Did the gym shorts mesh tie make it into production?” Blessedly, it did. I was excited about the narrow knit tie when I saw it at Project New York last July, and I [...]

In a season with few positive stories, it was comforting to be invited to Robert Valdes-Rodriguez’s celebration of a year in the neckwear business. The party, which was at the Pratt Mansion across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wasn’t the only party during New York Market Week, but it could easily be [...]

“Our regular client was not queuing on [Jan. 3 and 4] in Milan or Rome but was on the slopes in St. Moritz or on a boat in the Caribbean,” said Versace CEO Giancarlo Di Risio. The haughty executive was quoted in an Italian financial paper last week. He was scoffing at the notion that [...]

It might have been awkward listening to Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott talk politics in his speech at the NRF’s Big Show Monday. Listening to the guy that many blame for putting little guys out of business may be hard enough, but hearing him tell Democrats and Republicans to get along? Strange. Photo of Lee Scott courtesy [...]

My biggest worries in 2009: 1. I worry that only the big department stores (like Macy’s, Nordstrom), single branded stores (like Gap, J.Crew) and discount stores (Wal-Mart, Target) will survive the coming year. 2. That young men have no memories of going with their fathers to nice independent men’s specialty stores where service is a [...]

As I sit in front of my laptop in St. Paul, Minnesota in the house I grew up in, scouring the wires for news to write up, I started putting together a timeline of Twin Cities retail. Initially, I was trying to get a better grasp of the history of the dearly departed Dayton’s department [...]

Last week our associate editor Elise Diamantini and I spent a while at the cologne counter at Bloomingdale’s SoHo, and we were dazzled by the skills and charisma of a saleswoman named Leslie. (Elise wrote about it here.) What we learned at Bloomingdale’s was that a good salesperson can focus you. Her stories gave the [...]

If you read our coverage of the vendor roundtable MR Magazine organized earlier this week, you heard Allan Ellinger giving some pretty tough advice on retail and vendor survival. He suggested making targeted cuts in inventory and people. He warned that too many businesses have been focusing on the top line, and that it’s time [...]

“Is it true all these apparel stores are closing their doors?” a reader asked us late last week via e-mail. She was asking about a long list of retailers that has been circulating the Internet with a panicked message about the recession and a warning not to buy gift cards from store that may be [...]