People/Products

The downtown boutique aesthetic that emerged in New York City’s SoHo loft district in the late 1970s caught on––and stuck around––largely because it showed off arty clothes to striking effect. Architects and designers blithely stripped the deep and narrow loft spaces to their bare bones, leaving only cast-iron columns, concrete or wood floors, and white walls and ceilings, the latter often revealing ducts, pipes, and light tracks. Against this setting, clothes, spaciously arrayed as if in an art gallery, easily stood out.