Hoxton’s newest arrival, Goodhood opened last night. Cool hunters and indie scenesters flocked the launch party of this hip concept store. Very few goods were on display, a wise decision since they were giving out free booze, but it looks really promising.

Address
Goodhood: 41 Coronet St, Old St. Tube, www.goodhood.co.uk

We’re psyched about the launch of Goodhood, a shop opening in Hoxditch. Independent goods, music and clothes all in one spot? We’re sold!

Photo credit: Goodhood

Not much play these past two weeks, as we’ve been busy working on our London postcode series and an unrelated project. With the little free time I’ve had, I squeezed in at the packed Phonica party at T Bar on Saturday.

Earlier on the day, I went to Phonica’s shop in Soho to pick up a brilliant CD mix by Ewan Pearson for über club Fabric, and a Monza compilation CD by Crosstown Rebels head honcho Damian Lazarus. Lots of groovy beats to listen while we put the finishing touches on our latest collection…

Not only T-shirts have cool slogans, this newsagent has a catchy one too. Spotted in N16, Stoke Newington.

Pics galore of the Old Truman Brewery in East London, where an artsy and grungy vibe meshes with the curry houses on Brick Lane.

Acid house baby!

London outpost of the Parisian-based design bookstore.

And a handful of cool indie shops for the urban fashionistas

Sticking again with print, I bought back in March the first edition of London Independent, a bubbly collection of independent shops spanning fashion, furniture, food and art. Among the hip design and streetwear outlets featured are Artwords Bookshop in Shoreditch, Magma Books in Clerkenwell, A-non Clothing and Lik Neon off Brick Lane.

Addresses
A-non Clothing: 26 Cheshire St, Liverpool St. Tube, website
Artwords Bookshop: 65A Rivington St, Old St. Tube, website
Lik Neon: 106 Slater Street, Liverpool St. Tube, website
Magma: 117 Clerkenwell Rd, Chancery Lane, website

Spent Tuesday afternoon touring minimalist and concept shops in Paris. Here are a few that I checked out:

American Apparel
On my way to Pierre Herme, I noticed that AA, our T-shirt supplier, opened its first shop in rive gauche right off rue Bonaparte just south of Saint-Germain-des-Près. As always, the shop brims with colours and apparel made in the US of A.

BHV Homme
Although you can’t see it clearly in this pic, BHV’s flagship shop for men boasts a stock market board listing the prices of its best selling jeans.

GUS
Although it’s been around for about 7 years, this was my first trip to Gus, a cool concept store for men. Tucked behind the Grands Boulevards on the unassuming rue d’Uzes, the shop spans two floors selling books, clothes, accessories, electronics, and homeware. Gus was definitely the highlight of the tour.

Kulte
Stumbled onto this one just to see if the popular watering hole La Perle was busy as usual. I love it when a shop pays attention to details - the door handle is in a shape of a K. Note: the T-shirt on the left actually says “Don’t photograph me“. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.

Surface To Air
Another easy shop to miss, considering that the S2A shop in the 3e has no window display and sports only a discreet sign on the door. They sell trainers, magazines, T-shirts, and jeans at prices for the hip and trendy Parisian.

Addresses
American Apparel: 7, rue Gozlin, 6e, M St-Germain-des-Pres, website
BHV Homme: 36, rue de la Verrerie, 4e, M Hotel-de-Ville, website
Gus: 7, rue d’Uzès, 2e, website
Kulte: 76, rue Vieille du Temple, 3e, website
Surface To Air: 68 rue Charlot, 3e, website

My good friend brought me yesterday to Mortimer Snodgrass in Old Montreal, where he showed me a T-shirt company that takes packaging to another level.

T-box from Istanbul compresses T-shirts and other apparel into tiny boxes the size of a palm. The only hitch is that you don’t know how the tee fits and can’t return it if it turns out to be the wrong size. But it’s a cool concept nonetheless.

Labelled as Montreal’s urban operator, MadeinMtl culls the best places for fashion, booze and poutine, one of Quebec’s “delicacy”.

The site also features vignettes, narrated mostly in French, on themes germane to the city’s character like the Underground City, the Montreal stairways, multiculturalism and Cinema L’Amour. I strongly recommend a visit (the MadeinMtl site of course).

Like any big city, New York has its fair share of high street shops. But if you go south of 14th street, tons of hip, independent stores are waiting to be discovered. Here are some of the cool places that I saw:

Uniqlo

The “Japanese American Apparel”, Uniqlo has made New York home to its flagship store - a towering repository of colourful, mass-produced items. The design of the retail space is quite impressive, but I wish I could say the same about the T-shirts.

Sure, Terry Richardson, one of the world’s most coveted photographers, “designed” a whole T-shirt line for them, but it seems to me that the work was a result of a long 10 seconds of reflection: How about if I just stick a random photo on a tee? Maybe that’s what makes him a genius, but I just don’t get it.

Reed Space

The way I see it, Reed Space is what you get if Colette listened to hip-hop. A minimalist decor seeps through this Lower East Side Shop with streetwear magazines carefully arranged along the corridor and Graniph T-shirts neatly folded at the back.

Groupe 16 sur 20

With a Lotus Turbo Esprit parked at the entrance, this urban chic store is hard to miss. They didn’t carry many T-shirts (if any, can’t remember) but that car inside a shop thing was just too cool.

Roasting Plant

This was the coolest thing that I saw in NYC. Yup it’s a coffee shop but with one kick - the coffee beans are stored in tubes and, à la Willly Wonka, get sucked through the pipes all the way to the counter to give you that much needed caffeine jolt.

Addresses:
Groupe 16 sur 20: 267 Elizabeth St., NoLIta, website
Reed Space: 151 Orchard St., Lower East Side, website
Roasting Plant: 81 Orchard St., Lower East Side, website
Uniqlo: 546 Broadway, SoHo, website

Photo credit: Reed Space and me