I can't quite believe it's taken me THIS long to have an encounter with Luxor Tavella, owner of Paracelso (414 West Broadway), a New York Soho institution really considering her store has been there for 30 years, and I very often stay at the Soho Grand (she said she used to frequent the bar there before the music got too loud…). I was first taken by the storefront, plastered with yellowing clippings but better yet, the arrangement of clothes that was haphazard and painterly - i.e. the exact the opposite of West Broadway homogenised and chi-chi stores. Luxor Tavella is a both an old and a new soul, remembering the past and embracing the new. The peeps that have passed through her doors is sort of mind blowing really...Warhol, Basquiat and she also kept talking about Agyness Deyn, perhaps assuming that just because I was English, we all knew each other in some way or another. Perhaps her world is an intensely small and creative one where designers (she cited Gianfranco Ferre) would drop in and buy up a storm from her textile fantasies - sourced from Japan and Italy mainly. There's no strict aesthetic to Paracelso's pieces but they do veer towards artisinal fabrication which means Luxor can drape, hang and have the pieces strewn about in a way that is to her liking. As we were taking pictures with my friend Brandon, she felt the need to art direct it with a fabric piece here or a whirly windmill there. I went in twice whilst I was in New York and she kept back a beautiful velvet shrug/cardigan made up of all the autumnal colours that I love to crunch about in and with that she also gave a dried leaf that she had found that morning on her doorstep - she suggested I needed to wear it as a brooch or in the hair - if I had an ounce of the creativity and free spirit that Luxor has, perhaps the leaf would be in my hair. Instead, I'm a cop-out that has placed it in front of the iMac, part of the technology that Luxor rejects - she actually asked that I send the photograph that I had taken of myself and her to her via snail mail. Must try and find a good way of printing it out so that it doesn't smack of Snappy Snaps, all that 'digital stuff' that Luxor isn't into... oh, and I need to improve my hand writing too...
The wall that holds TOO much...
Was most happy with my purchase, that I wore it straight away with my travelling outfit (was leaving New York that day... )
...but the colours TRULY shine here in these pics taken by The Streethearts (thanks to Tanya who alerted me!) It was the first day of LFW and I had just landed in from New York that day... not QUITE sure how I managed to look NOT half-dead here. Come on Streethearts peeps... retouching, some special kind of lens
(Wearing Paracelso velvet shrug, Crumpet checked wrap, Jaegar hat, TBA mushroom dress, Tory Burch bag)
