![]() ![]() God we didn’t go with it, because we probably wouldn’t be having this It was hip and cool and alluring at the time. Word ‘charisma.’ In 1967, Bobby Kennedy was still alive, and ‘charisma’ “We liked charivari because nobody knew what it meant and She had gotten as far as the c’s when she landed The place black and white.” Trying to find a name for the store, SelmaĬonsulted a thesaurus. “We had two weeks to get ready,” Barbara remembers. Home, and we knew there were other people like us.” There was no question where we were going to open. Barbara says, “People have given us creditįor doing all sorts of demographic studies. Of New York City’s first gentrified neighborhoods-a transitionĬharivari played a part in. Hopes on a neighborhood which was then a wasteland with a reputation forīeing dangerous, and was at least a decade away from its future as one The family always laughed about the fact that they had opened on Aprilįools’ Day, because so many people said they were fools to pin their Already die-hard Upper West Siders, they moved only a block Weiser, a fur manufacturer and importer, she took Barbara and Jon and After divorcing her husband of 17 years, Magnus Went out of business, in 1967, Selma was 42, and she had a tough timeįinding another position in fashion retail, which pushed her up againstĪ wall. She eventually landed as a junior-dress buyer for Chase, aĭepartment store in Newark, New Jersey-a position she really enjoyed,ĭespite how conservative and unadventurous the place was. When they arrived at Penn Station the young girl, already a live wire, At eight she accompanied her mother into Manhattan, and Who grew up in a Russian-Jewish immigrant family on Staten Island, got The Weisers were not always big shots in the fashion world. Word for what they accomplished it is indeed charivari, which means Homogenized, even conservative landscape. In now, the one with big global brands, high prices, and a deeply Weisers’ was a very different fashion moment from the one we are living Paul Gaultier, Azzedine Alaïa, Helmut Lang, Katharine Hamnett, PerryĮllis, Marc Jacobs, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries van Noten, and more. Gianni Versace, Miuccia Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Thierry Mugler, Jean The curated fashion store and championed an international roster ofĭesigners, from Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto to Giorgio Armani, Miracle on Broadway”-who, with a few others, had invented the idea of Together the Weisers could beĬredited as true fashion pioneers-one writer called Charivari “the Had a penchant for wearing Yohji Yamamoto, and they’d each change it up Stein, carrot-colored hair, cut short and sharp, as the chief. Looked like their own little tribe, with Selma, a glamorous Gertrude The matriarch: Selma (bornġ925) the daughter, Barbara (born 1950) the son, Jon (born 1952). When Charivari went belly-up, it was a brutal, final chapter to what hadīeen a fantastic story, full of passion, vision, hilarity, discoveries,Įxcitement, and an unforgettable family trio. Of one-of-a-kind boutiques-which started with a single small store in To this day people who loved their constellation Stab in the heart of experimental fashion and a blow to their beloved Throw in the towel in the late 1990s by filing for bankruptcy, it was a Had helped revolutionize retail and fashion itself. Previously unfashionable Upper West Side of Manhattan and in the process The Weiser family, that had brought avant-garde clothes to the ![]() That befell Charivari, an irrepressible mini fashion empire, created by One of the saddest fashion deaths in American retail history was the one Besides, stick around and check out the battles between the powerful fashion houses, watch the way the big stores fight with each other for designer exclusives, witness the fierce rivalry among the editors, cry for the firing and cheer for the hiring of talent, don’t forget the burnouts and meltdowns, and you’ll get the point-there is plenty of blood to mop up at the end of each season. Without poetic license there would be no fashion. How, one may ask, can sitting at a fashion show watching done-up models strut up and down the runway, while showing off the latest trends in frocks, leggings, jackets, and jumpsuits to the beat of Lady Gaga, have anything to do with such a serious subject? Of course it doesn’t really, but Fashion insiders sometimes use war metaphors to explain their world-they describe going to the collections in New York, Milan, and Paris as being in the trenches-and that can be a shocker. ![]()
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