It's the end of an era.
In the spring of 2008, I spent all the money I had saved and bought myself a cross-country plane ticket from San Francisco to New York City to see if I wanted to move there. Armed with thick stacks of MapQuest print-outs, I traversed Manhattan, determined to see every landmark on the deranged list of places that I considered to be the heart and soul of a place I read about obsessively on gossipy, local blogs I devoured like Gawker and The Cobrasnake.
That store will be closing its doors this year. On Monday, Opening Ceremony founders Carol Lim and Humberto Leon sent out a statement announcing that after its recent acquisition by fashion platform New Guards Group, the brand would halt selling any merchandise from other designers other than its own label, move its business online, and shut down its retail locations, without concrete plans to continue a brick-and-mortar business.
Today, these emerging designers can sell directly to consumers. The internet and social media has made middlemen retailers like Opening Ceremony irrelevant as a marketplace. But “discovery” platforms — influencers and Instagrammers — don’t exactly foster newness. Clicking ‘like’ on one photo of a lime-green turtleneck leads me to become inundated with photos of other electric-hued tops. That is not discovery.
In 2008, Opening Ceremony was thriving, because that kind of dressing — experimental, brave, sort of unhinged — was how every young, ambitious, and creative person dressed. It was every downtown It-girl’s favorite store. It was where every fun-looking person found their favorite thing to wear. Every artist, musician, and designer I admired was shooting, designing, ideating, or collaborating with Opening Ceremony.
Opening Ceremony played by their own rules. They were among the first to turn fashion shows into actual shows, showcasing
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