Not many people know where to buy great fashion in New York anymore. If you happen to be a tastemaker, magazine editor, or curious collector, then you probably know exactly where to find the clothes that make you tick. But for anyone else, whether visitors or residents, New York’s shopping landscape still feels like a ghost town, haunted by the spirits of the great multi-brand retail concepts that are no more: Barneys, Bendel’s, Jeffrey, Opening Ceremony, Bird, and Steven Alan.
That’s not to say the city doesn’t have its spots. There’s of course Bergdorf Goodman and Dover Street Market, plus several spectacular little jewel-box stores opened by labels like Bode and resale vendors like Desert Vintage. But few places today offer that rush you can only get when you come face-to-face with a new idea—a brand, a cut or texture or silhouette that you just have to have—or a space that invites you to stay a while, to think and spend money at the same time. Discovery while shopping is somewhat of a lost art, especially thanks to the algorithms and iPhones that steer us blindly from product to product. At the end of this year, however, it feels like we’re on the precipice of a new shopping dawn in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Over the last several weeks, independent labels like Telfar, The Elder Statesman, Issey Miyake, and Another Tomorrow have opened outposts in SoHo, and Collina Strada’s Hillary Taymour soft-opened her store on the Lower East Side. It’s a major moment for these brands, as it is for the few multi-brand concepts that have been gaining buzz in and around the city throughout 2024.
In Boerum Hill, there’s Outline, owned by Margaret Austin (a former buyer for multi-brand legends Opening Ceremony and Totokaelo) and Hannah Rieke and stocked with an incredible buy edit includes pieces from Colleen Allen, Dries Van Noten, The Row, and Molly Goddard. In an old factory building in Dumbo, L’Ensemble, owned by former La Garçonne buyer Dawn Nguyen, invites shoppers to a beautifully-designed space via appointment. Soon, Nguyen will open a second location that will be accessible to foot traffic, so visitors can freely browse the selection of up-and-coming labels like Judy Turner and Mfpen, as well as Proenza Schouler, Kallmeyer, Maria McManus, and Y’s by Yohji Yamamoto.
And then there’s Maimoun. Barneys merchandiser and personal shopper Mina Alyeshmerni founded it as an e-commerce site in L.A. in 2016 and opened her first standalone store concept in Williamsburg last week.
Maimoun, which comes from the Persian word meh-moun and means company or guests invited to your home, is all about fostering community and nurturing young talent. Alyeshmerni’s stock features established labels like Eckhaus Latta and Bevza. She also has SC103, a downtown label that has strategically used small pop-ups in non-traditional spaces to get the word out about their brand. But Maimoun really focuses on nearly or totally unknown emerging labels looking to scale their businesses and reach more customers without sacrificing their vision or modes of creating.
The day of Maimoun’s official opening, I met Alyeshmerni at the shop to get a tour and learn more about some of the designers she currently has on the floor. The space is intimate but filled with light beaming through the original glass brick facade. All of the furniture pieces and decor— things like sculpted glass sconces and black-painted studded stools—are made by emerging talents in the design world.
Near the entrance, guests are greeted by a short, round wooden table with hidden drawers. (Alyeshmerni plans to tuck some of the jewelry offerings in there for customers to discover.) There’s a beautiful Bauhausian metal and grey daybed near the fitting rooms. The walls are lined with ivory curtains embellished on the edges just slightly with crystal and silver studs. Everything in the space is modular, meant to be moved around and changed over time and depending on the season’s buy.
Alyeshmerni, who is still commuting between L.A. and New York (she was born and raised in Long Island), seemed slightly overwhelmed but also totally exhilarated. She proudly pointed out the hand-blown glass buttons on a top from Lucille Thièvre, recently worn by Lily Rose-Depp during her Nosferatu press junket, and fawned over a pair of orchid-shaped earrings by Baggira, made from very real-looking floristry clay.
“These pieces really do deserve airtime,” she said, noting that often, the core message or craft behind a designer’s work can get lost in the e-commerce of it all. “It’s hard to understand what goes into it,” she added. “We try our best but you really do need to see it in person. We are testing this space out more as an incubator space for our emerging talent.”
Empowering young talent is a skill Alyeshmerni honed while working under Julie Gilhart and Tomoko Ogura at Barneys in its heyday. “Listening in on their meetings with emerging designers was always my favorite,” she said. “I never really understood how much collaboration was involved in that process, which for me, has informed the way that I collaborate with my designers.” In retail speak, collaborating means sharing customer feedback with the designers and working with them to ensure that they understand how to fine-tune supply and demand based on their size and infrastructure.
At the store, Alyeshmerni plans to host individual trunk shows for the designers to interact directly with the customers. She is also planning to host training sessions with her staff (her store manager, whom she refers to as “kick-ass,” formerly worked for Maison Margiela) where they’ll do walk-throughs with each designer and participate in product knowledge sessions. “I want my staff to be able to talk about the collections,” Alyeshmerni explained. “I want them to be able to talk about all of those things that never make it to the end user online. Those are the little beads of happiness.”
Mina Alyeshmerni, founder of Maimoun
Sitting in Maimoun, I couldn’t help but think about some of Alyeshmerni’s neighbors in Williamsburg. Over the last two-and-a-half years, the area has become an open-air luxury mall. Chanel Beauty and Hermes have opened there, along with North Face, Cos, Away, Glossier—the list goes on and on.
Alyeshmerni not only loved the space she found, but she also saw the choice of location as a kind of rebellious act. She wants to partner with local vintage shops for events and collaborations and host community gatherings for other independent retailers in the area.
For Alyeshmerni, it’s about “deconstructing the department store.” She explained, “It’s about creating space for that one-to-one interaction, or the feeling that you’re coming across something small but sacred.” When it comes to shopping in New York, she says, “We’re going to bring it all back. No, wait. We’re going to take it back. I like that wording better.”
Brooke Bobb is the fashion news director at Harper’s Bazaar, working across print and digital platforms. Previously, she was a senior content editor at Amazon Fashion, and worked at Vogue Runway as senior fashion news writer.