The Sock Man

They say New York has everything. Name it. Between the gray asphalt and the blue horizon the apple city will have it.

Meet The Sock Man, a Newyorkee born in the 80’s, located in the east side’s trendsetter neighborhood. This store grew up in times when Madonna had black hair and Cindy Lauper sang “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Remember those socks? Neon tights and laced pantyhose? A-ha!

Well, The Sock Man was the store selling the eccentric rockers and the 80’s music fans their hosiery. Throughout thirty years of existence the store has maintained its walls, filling them even more with accessories to sock your legs with tights, thigh highs, leg warmers, stockings and pantyhose.

Yes, you read right, a complete store that pays its rent selling just one thing, socks. It might be a limited category but the colors, materials and designs that these leg-gloves reflect are endless.

What:: The Sock Man
www:: www.thesockman.com
Where:: 27 St.Mark’s Place, Manhattan NY 10003
Call:: 212 529 0300
Why:: Socks are shoes best friends.

Search & Destroy

Laying on St. Marks’ torso a particular store is resting. Close your mouth. Dry your hanging saliva. You have seen zombies, chopped head dolls and skulls before. They are just decoration for S&D’s dangerous clothing store’s window.

Notice the anarchy sign on the entrance, the UK flag and the queen’s pierced lip banner, definitely signs of rebellion.

Search & Destroy is a punk thrift and vintage store. It’s operated by Japanese fashionable dudes that will teach Paris Hilton a lesson. Fashion has to be dirty, aggressive and saturated in studs. Music is madness and hard core punk is playing at all times. Browsing their clothes is like sneaking through the Sex Pistols’ luggage on tour.

Prices are tough but and so is life, Punk!

What:: Search & Destroy
Where:: 25 St.Marks Place, Manhattan NY 10003
Call:: 212 358 1120
Why:: I’m a revolutionary, I don’t just dress like one.

Trash & Vaudeville

This is the type of store that when pronouncing its name will make a bad-ass, sexy tatt’ lady make a pierced high pitch scream like a spoiled brat. Trash & Vaudeville is a, spell-it-out, Oh Em Gee fashion institution.

All your symptoms of rebellion will be cherished. It is your fashion hospital. Do you have a pain for Rock and Roll? Well, savor it like tough love. Trash won’t cure your ache but will help spread your I-do-what-I-want disease.

Do you have the guts is the question? The guts to wear your style out and not give a damn about what they say? If so, T&V is a two-story boutique holding every necessary item to dress your body and help you flick your finger at those to whom individualism knows not.

Upstairs find tops, jackets, denim, dresses and bags. Downstairs rock and roll T’s, shoes, underwear, hair dyes and accessories. Everything is saturated in color and animal prints. And splashed in leather, denim and rock and roll graphics.

Trash also holds Iron Fist’s deadly heels and bloody sexy T’s. A Wasabi old time favorite

What:: Trash & Vaudeville
Where:: 4 St.Marks, Manhattan NY 10003
Call:: 212 982 3590
Why:: Do you think it is easy being this beautiful!

Patricia Field‘s  “House of Field”

Patricia Field has an audacious eagle eye for fashion. She scrapes out the best of the best of music and fashion’s decades. Like an alchemist, she blends it together with a little bit of the now and turns it into gold. That’s style in its most glowing state–one who is able to capture the great, recreate it and make it her own.

Browse her colorful collections, swimwear to ready-to-wear, accessories, jewelry collection and her collaborations with other brands. It’s apparel meant to be worn by outraged expressionists and artists.

Experience face to face her magical powers throughout her different fierce lines.
David Dalrymple: Metallic suits and leggings.
Keith Haring by Patricia Field: African-inspired, black and white print coloring accessories, leather, jeans and T’s.
Field salutes Sprouse: Oversized solid color prints with Field’s name written all over it. Have a taste of her swagger in different colors and items: hot pink, blue, red and gray.
Barbie by Field: Bags and golden jewelry with a retro 50’s Barbie communicating her message: I’m a doll.

Patricia Field has reached her elixir.

What:: House of Field
WWW:: Patricia Field
Where:: 302 Bowery, Manhattan NY 10012
Call:: 212 9666 4066
Why:: Hail to Patricia Field’s immortality

Hottie

Gotta sweet tooth for color? Hottie is that type of candy store.
Don’t worry about saccharine. You are not going to be eating. Hottie offers candy for your gluttonous craves for bling-bling plastic accessories.

You only have ten fingers, too bad. Me too, but I wish I had more. Three rings a finger? That seems a little intense.

Your decision skills rot after you are eaten by Hottie’s entrance glass doors. Who are you going to please? Your hair, your head, your ears, your neck, your waist, your wrist, your fingers, your legs or your feet? Go on. The unthinkable hangs from the saturated accessory store’s red walls: headbands with ears, Edie Sedgwick’s entire collection-like earrings, two-finger rings, colored metal hip chains, ties, bow ties, bows in your head. Feeling lucky–charms, charmed chains, heart charms…the list continues. It’s a never-ending list of accessories. It will raise the sugar level in your blood.

What:: Fashion Accessories
Where:: 5 St.Marks Place, Manhattan NY 10003
Call:: 212 228 4989
Why:: Hottie is too hardcore for Charlie and the chocolate factory.

Gothic Renaissance

Dungeons are not a fantasy in New York. Cross the gate of Gothic Renaissance and that dungeon will be your lair, your home.

Are you thirsty for blood? Is your skin whiter than porcelain? Do you like to lace up your torso in leather? Is fashion your fetish whore?

If you are nodding, you’ve found your nest. It is not by the result of black magic. It is cruel reality that created Gothic Renaissance for your indulgence.

This fashion boutique celebrates the Victorian era. It was written in their holy book. Their 16000 square foot store is a gothic kingdom holding different styled villages; Punk, Cyber Punk, Gothic Lolita, Renaissance and Occult & Fetish. Which one do you belong to?

Their fashion, footwear and accessories arrive from all over the world. They hold the forbidden dress, the killer shoe, the masochist’s dream boned corset and the latex bodysuit. Cheap low-quality items are banned from their vocabulary. If that’s what you are looking for save yourself the journey.

Gothic Renaissance is a lusty feast for your daredevil fashion heart.

What:: Fetish and Gothic Fashion
WWW:: Gothic Renaissance
Where:: 108 4th Ave, Manhattan NY 10003 (East Side)
Call:: 212 780 9558
When:: Monday- Saturday 11am- 8pm. Sunday 12pm to 7pm.
Why:: Fashion is your fetish whore

-Pronounce New York with an L before the K (City Accent)

-Calves and thighs look like rocks. (The Newyorkee exercise  their legs by going up and down the stairs to the subway.)

-Underground; ears grow cable roots that connect each individual to a MP3 or smart phone.

-Rat is a word that will pop up in your vocabulary more often.

-Above ground and after the subway, there is a need to wash your hands regularly, or to carry a key chain hand sanitizer.

-Lost in the city you ask for directions and you get indications by the application of an iPhone of the person you asked (I thought they lived here).

-If it pours, you don’t run to the car, you open an umbrella.

-If tired you can hang out in Central Park. (Watch it, Danny De Vito might sit next to you. He did!)

-Human bodies look like islands on a sunny day lying down across  a green field.

-Men with no shirts that appear to be taking a nap might snap awake and do impulsively ten pushups and then go back to rest. (What is it, intermission? Or the new silent pick-up line?)

-Most common pick-up line: God bless you

-To refresh your thirst, have an iced coffee.

-Food trucks that do not come to you, you come to them.

-If hungry and in a branded cafeteria you might select your meal accompanied by how many calories it has. (Yes, a guilty sentiment arises when you notice your favorite fruit smoothie contains the most calories)

-In Brooklyn, everyone is photo worthy and surprisingly couples match their outfits.

-Williamsburg (Neighborhood) for the young artist, designer, bohemian, hippy, gypsy, flea and …intensely VEGAN. Billy, I want chicken!

-In Williamsburg,  thearchitecture of studio lofts can easily open as an attraction park.

-Flyers are paper copies, yeap! There are still some punks hanging around.

-Ramblers pay their trip by performing in the street.

-Airport (LGA) has traffic lights at every pedestrian crosswalk, so make sure you arrive with 20 minutes in your pocket to spend at every red light while your cab reaches your airline transportation.

….I wonder New York, what would you think of me.

See related articles::
Williamsburg
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-wasabi-perspective-williamsburg/

East Side
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-wasabi-perspective-east-side/

Central Park
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-wasabi-perspective-strawberry-field/

Coney Island
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-miami-perspective/

Photos taken at East Side, New York June 2010 by Pamela Wasabi.
To see full gallery click on link

Where:: East Side
The fashion, music, and nightlife scene takes place on the Lower Eastside. . Day or night, you can find in this neighborhood one of the things that New York is best known for: Culture.

Walls are filled up with colors and graffiti. Restaurants and small cafeterias resemble somebody’s living room, inviting you personally to their “home” to enjoy  mom and pop recipes. Poetry reunions, street markets, craft vendors, students, and young individuals with an artistic aura; it is just hard to miss their unique way of dressing. A style that is not hipster or 80’s is not this or that, it is just unclassified.Attractive or not, it certainly paints their bodies with one common quality: uniqueness. Punks? Maybe or maybe not, but definitely if you have that revolutionary drive of expressing yourself these are the streets that will roll out the red carpet for you.

On St. Marks Place, tat parlors, piercing shops, and the most underground fashionable stores scream out loud rock and roll..  Entering these stores is not a quick 15 minute shopping spree. Take your time and enjoy the extroverted, strident and colorful outfits that stores like Patricia Field, Trash, Gothic Renaissance, and Search & Destroy have pulled out for you.  And if you just want to pass by and keep your plastic in your wallet; do so, but step inside these stores and see why New York is a fashion capital holding the best merchandised non-commercial boutiques whose fashion perspective is directly inspired by music and street culture. They sell to the trendsetter; to that one that picks its own style from its rebellion not from a mainstream magazine or the so called pop stars. The Eastside is where the sun rises to illuminate your creativity. Express it!

What:: Shop

Hottie
(Accessories)
5 St.Marks Place, Manhattan NY 10003

Halloween Adventure
(Costumes)
808 Broadway
212 673 4546

The Sock Man
(Socks… & Socks)
27 St.Mark’s Place, Manhattan NY 10003
212 529 0300

Patricia Field
(Clothing, accessories and beauty salon (Hello Beautiful))
302 Bowery, Manhattan NY 10012
212 9666 4066

Search & Destroy
(Thrift and Vintage store)
25 St.Marks Place, Manhattan NY 10003
212 358 1120

Trash & Vaudeville
(Punk, rock and Harajuku Fashion)
4 St.Marks, Manhattan NY 10003
212 982 3590

Gothic Renaissance
(Gothic and Fetish wear)
108 4^th Ave, Manhattan NY 10003
212 780 9558

What:: See
The Slipper Room
(Bar, Burlesque and Acromedian* show) $5 +21
167 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002-2214
(212) 253-7246
*Acrobat+Comedian
Click on link to see full gallery

How::
To East Side NY- Metro L get off 3^rd Ave

Why:: East side is where the sun rises to illuminate your creativity. Express it!

See related articles::
Williamsburg
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-wasabi-perspective-williamsburg/

Central Park
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-wasabi-perspective-strawberry-field/

Coney Island
http://wasabifashionkult.com/2010/06/new-york-from-a-miami-perspective/