Open for Business

**EDIT** By the way, this ALL makes a whole lot more sense when you find out that Acne will be showing on schedule as part of London Fashion Week in September… I knew about it beforehand but info was embargoed until today… a foreign addition to the calendar that makes sense, no? 

It's been in the pipeline for such a long time that I'm not sure I even remember when the talk started.  Wasn't an Acne store in London opening a year ago?  Nope, never came.  Weren't they looking for somewhere around Redchurch Street?  Nope, despite all the developments on that street.  Well, it's finally here and they've settled on an ex-gallery on Dover Street.  Ah… clever stuff, being just next to Dover Street Market.

It also happens to be one of the biggest stores in the Acne universe, or rather, it's probably the tallest as it spans four flours.  Yay for narrow Georgian town houses.  If more stores were nestled into them, my calf muscles would be significantly more toned.  Acne has had a presentation affinity with London in the past few years, with interesting presentations in the Barbican, Sir John Soane's Museum and the Tramshed in Shoreditch so it makes even more sense that the label should have a home in London.  It may have been a long time coming but it's here now and conveniently makes that Mayfair trek a fuller one.

So, up to the womenswear floor first and you're struck by interiors painter Jeremiah Goodman's three ceiling height paintings of Jonny Johannson's studio in Stockholm.  I like how they've hastily set up a Facebook for Mr Goodman, one which I doubt he personally checks.  I think I may have had a bizarre conversation with him about chocolates on the pillows in The Peninsula, once he found out I was from Hong Kong…

Anyhow I am of course a fan of anything painterly…

And so the shearling-a-thon starts dropping into stores from now on… I've documented a ton of them that I need to put into some neat collage…

Btw, there are black roses everywhere…

These are supposed to look like they've been metal plated… not sure what collection they're from but I love the mish-mash of shoe elements to them…part desert boot, part moccasin, part brogue…

I never got in on the army green bomber action when the bomber jacket craze was going on…hmmm…

Still loving this distorted Hawaiian floral print…

Ah..fleecy goodness in the form of this Galaxy coat…

Helmut Lang's Eagle sculpture swoops into its new home on the denim floor of the store, but a part of it is still waiting to be transported in… possibly via crane? 

Yay, an outdoor space!  Not enough of them incorporated into London stores if you ask me… this is on the top floor which is sort of like a fluid gallery/whatever/spacious airy fairy space…

A stairway to nowhere with Acne's 'skinny bum' sofa in the cavernous top floor space.

Currently, the top floor is housing the bulk of the womenswear shoes all on concrete, mirrored and wooden plinths… I'm particularly loving the pocket boots which I think are the upgraded version of a pair of novelty boots from a while back which advocated you to keep your lipstick in the pockets…

The top floor also has some pieces of jewellery by Husam el Odeh for Acne… the collaboration goes on… there are also some button-like metal earrings for those with very tolerant pierced ears…

I love the 'banged-up' quality of this cuff…  

Katerina Jebb also contributes some of her work for the store…

Interestingly, the ground floor actually begins with menswear which is somehow a shakeup to the normal retail order of things but I guess Acne isn't really biased towards menswear or womenswear…

Perhaps I'll do more of that self-gifting here seeing as it's the first thing that I see… 

 

Jean Cocteau prints decorate the ground floor… 

Alright, enough of the "Are they, will they, where?" talk – it's open from Friday to the public.