COLUMNISTS A s President Obama flew to London for the G20 summit, Sir Philip Green was en route to New York to open the first US branch of Topshop. These two princes of public opinion could almost have passed each other in the air, as each went to spread their respective economic gospel in the other’s country. Regardless of whether their attempts to buoy the markets will work in the long term, it certainly won’t be for want of trying.
Consider Sir Philip’s project. There could not be a worse time to open a megastore – reputedly worth $24m – in Manhattan. The optimism apparent in the Englishman’s investment in New York real estate is astonishing. And yet he celebrated with not one but three parties, attended by almost as many celebs as serenaded the president’s inauguration on the Mall.
Perhaps Sir Philip’s confidence springs from the mutual fascination between Americans and Brits dating from our complicated colonial past. After all, a guy always wants the girl who got away, just as that girl will always have a lingering nostalgia for her first love, even if he done her wrong with all that taxation and stuff.
The phenomenon has more prosaic explanations too: English designers have long harboured fantasies of retaking America – it’s such a big market that if you can sell there you don’t really need to sell anywhere else. (Hence the fact that so many US talents stay in the US – why waste economic and emotional energy to compete in the lands of Gucci and Chanel?) Indeed, it became a bit of a trend among young Brits such as Matthew Williamson, Luella Bartley, Alice Temperley, Jonathan Saunders and Roland Mouret to decamp to Atlantic shores after a few seasons in London.
The nominal reason was to increase their orders from US department stores, which like to see collections early, the better to place their orders early, the better to get deliveries early, the better to get people into stores. Designers asserted that the gains in income compensated for the loss in publicity caused by their becoming tiny fish in big ponds ruled by the giant tunas of Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs.
Yet Luella has returned to London; Temperley has gone virtual; and Mouret has chosen Paris for his RM line. The only special fashion relationship still thriving could well be the partnership between Rick Owens and Gareth Pugh (Owens being the California punk whose washed leather has made him a cult figure, and Pugh the skinny Brit Goth he backs). And that is based in Paris, too: neutral ground, I guess.
Topshop is partly purporting to be using its New York home to give smaller British labels a springboard into America: Preen, Richard Nicoll and Saunders’s capsule lines will feature alongside the highly successful designs of Kate Moss, who cut the ribbon (natch) at the store in floor-length green, bias-cut chiffon. Apparently the idea is to use one special relationship to create more.
Certainly in Moss’s case this seems to have worked, as the opening could be seen as a dress rehearsal for her stint as co-host of the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute gala next month, and her clothes seem as popular among Manhattanites as Londoners: a few days after Topshop opened, there were lines of people patiently waiting to get some of her ineffable British cool into their closet. (Don’t they know that the clothes look good on her because she’s Kate Moss, not because of the silhouettes? The woman can make a garbage bag look desirable – and has. Then again, her English compatriots seem equally deluded.)
Still, for a few weeks, the Brits will have done what no amount of rate-cutting had managed: they have got Americans (or New Yorkers at least) shopping again. The question becomes: will it last? The thing about the US-UK axis is that it is so fraught with expectations and stereotypes as to make every choice, from clothing to commerce, a loaded issue – which brings us to a certain special figure of the special relationship: Michelle Obama.
Before she embarked on her sartorial seduction of Europe, bloggers to www.mrs-o.org, a site dedicated to the first lady, voiced concern that the “ruthless” British tabloids might “take her apart”. The Daily Mail had overcome its adoration by day three, whereupon it labelled her Junya Watanabe cardigan “bizarre” and carped: “It seems [she] decided to travel light, as she wore the ... pearl necklace seen yesterday, for a third time.” But criticism came from America too. “Lili”, à propos the Moschino big-bow blouse Michelle wore in Prague, posted: “I don’t like the blouse and I do not feel I need to apologise by saying her hair and makeup look great to compensate. We just have to admit that sometimes she will make fashion mistakes and get over it.”
Familiarity had started to breed contempt on both sides of the pond – the same risk Topshop runs in moving to New York. In London, it was a retail tourist destination akin to Harrods; by making itself a part of the US retail landscape, no matter how many lights and looks it offers, it may become less special after all.
vanessa.friedman@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/friedman
