Critical Shopping

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Alexandra Jacobs sounds like she's equal parts charmed and repelled by the new Uniqlo flagship's sleek futurism. On the one hand, she thinks it's a welcome escape from the retro references that dominate fashion right now. On the other hand, she finds it a bit cold and inhuman—her references include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jean Paul Gaultier's designs for The Fifth Element, and rubber sex dolls. Like all fashion types, though, she's helpless in front of Jil Sander's +J collection, which she describes reverently: "Here the colors were dark and glowering; the shapes apocalyptic, like a Bavarian forest in the aftermath of a thermonuclear meltdown." [NYT]

Uniqlo - Soho

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