G'Day Bklyn

BKLYN Yard Shuttered

It is bad enough that it is crazy hot and I have been outside at my son’s Field Day since 9.30am, but now I get word that BKLYN Yard is closed for business. As quickly as I fell in love with that oasis on the stinky Gowanus Canal, it is gone.

The folk at Mean Red Productions, say last weekend – which was a bonanza with events including Score! Free Pop-Up Swap and Parked, where some of the city’s hottest food trucks gathered and fed thousands for the holiday weekend – was the finale. The landlord apparently won’t honor or even renegotiate the lease on the Carroll Street property and has told Mean Red to take their four-year vision elsewhere.

The landlord “requested that we take what we have built, and terminate all of our confirmed plans and schedule for BKLYN Yard this summer, ” Mean Read, the production, marketing and promotions company that dreamed up the yard concept, says in a posting on the BKLYN Yard web page.

They may be down, but definitely not out: “Rest assured our renegade spirit and love for pop-up spaces will come alive again this summer — very possibly with the same collaborators and programming you see on our current schedule… And very possibly even better than we had planned before,” says Mean Red.

Meantime, Doug Singer, Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter’s Sunday Best series will continue on at another location, including this Sunday with DJ Koze. To find out where, keep an eye on www.sundaybestnyc.com.

Just when it looked like there was a grassy patch to loll about on through hot summer days … good luck Mean Red and keep us posted …

Where Do Designs For the Masses Wind Up …

Where do cheap designer duds go once the buzz is over? To the clearance rack, that’s where.

I traipsed over to the Target store this week, after following my own advice and dropping two bulging bags of clothes at the Salvation Army on Atlantic Avenue. My Target mission was two-fold: to check out the Zac Posen collection in person, which was unveiled a week ago, and to see what was left of other recent designer collaborations, including  the much-hyped Liberty of London for Target range and Jean Paul Gaultier’s collection.

Well there they were, the remnants of both designers’ clothes, piled high on the clearance racks. Needless to say there was no buzz there. No styling. No huge “get it while it lasts” graphics; nary a coat hanger even for these forgotten clothes. They were crammed onto a couple of racks, hanging haphazardly or trodden underfoot beneath the 50%-off and 30%-off banners.

These were the same floral dresses and saucy swimsuits that people lined up for just a few weeks ago, though admittedly the choice of sizes was limited to very small or very large. Quite a contrast from Liberty’s fanfare introduction to the masses at a pop-up store in New York, that came with an enormous ad campaign, spring flowers and even hyacinth scent wafting through the air. Jean Paul Gaultier would be no less thrilled, I’m sure, to see what’s left of his collection shoved unceremoniously onto the bargain racks.

Somehow even the deep discounts  couldn’t make this mish-mash of frocks and bathing suits and tunics appeal; everything looked unloved, cheap and garish.

That leads me right to Zac Posen’s collection, which is still very much front and center, having been in store only since April 25. I was disappointed it didn’t show better than I expected. The fabrics had that cheap sheen; the red tulle party dress didn’t live up to my hopes; the cherry-red leather jacket, the most pricey of the clothes at just under $200, looked plastic and glaringly bright; and some of the prints were just plain tacky.

Needless to say I left empty-handed and even more resolved to buy only what I love from now on.

Outnet’s $1 Birthday Sale Leaves Partygoers Wanting

I had my game plan. I set my sights on one dress, a Manoush tiered silk gown I’ve had my eye on for months, and a Kenneth Jay Lane leather cuff, but neither item was included in the much-hyped Outnet 1^st birthday sale that was over in a  flash this morning.

Like thousands of fashion lovers, I cleared my Friday schedule to be ready for the email from theOutnet.com, the discount offshoot of high-end online retailer Net-A-Porter.com,  that would provide the top secret time of the $1 sale. Instead, when I wandered downstairs this morning to make lunches for my children and get them up and ready for school, the email alert flashed and lo and behold just before 7am, the sale was on.

Fast and furious I logged in and filtered for my size only to find a paltry selection; two pages of clothes that I didn’t care for.  For those who’ve asked, the only noteworthy things left at that stage were studded Mary Janes and a Stella McCartney Taffeta jacket that, at a stretch, I may have bought for a buck. The jewelry flashed SOLD OUT, and the handbags, which I would happily have settled for, were long gone. A Sold Out sign abounded by 7.25am, and the next time I checked, the sale was closed.

What a fizzer. It was a great concept. Who doesn’t want a designer piece for just a dollar? But like so many of these recent pop-up stores, Liberty of London for Target  which sold out a day early and the current Zac Posen for Target  24-hour sale come to mind,  or even the snatch and grab for  Stella McCartney children’s clothes at the Gap, the attempt to give everyone a chance to participate leaves most people wanting.

I was one of the lucky shoppers who could actually sign-in to the Outnet site this morning, but there are many, many people who’ve complained that the site crashed or it took them hours to log-in, only to find the sale closed by then. There are gripes galore on Twitter today, calling the sale a bust, a hoax, a joke; a couple of tweeters commented that it was like getting an invitation to a fabulous party and then having the bouncer not let you in!

Not surprisingly, the Zac Posen for Target pop-up sales party, which started 11pm last night and runs until 11pm tonight, was another bloodbath.  I didn’t go after hearing from a friend that racks were bare by 11.25pm. I’m not so enamored of the range that I have to have something right now, but perhaps I’ll take my chances to peruse what’s left when it hits Target. com on April 25.

The moral of all this?  Maybe with the proliferation of social media – Twitter and Facebook, in particular, where loads of people have shared their Outnet frustrations – and guerrilla advertising, have elevated even the world of pop-up stores and deep discounting to heights beyond the average consumer.

Now, even designing or discounting for the masses have become exclusive.

Ni Hao Australia: Say No to Censorship!

Australia is a democracy, or at least it was when I last visited. The laid-back land of no worries offers the right to vote, to live freely and as of now, the right to think for oneself – but that could all change if the current government gets its way.

There are plans afoot to censor internet content in much the same way that Communist China does. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Communications Minister Stephen Conroy have outlined plans to force Internet Service Providers to block a blacklist of so-called refused classification or RC websites for all Australian internet users. If adopted into law, and let’s pray it isn’t, the screening system would make Australia one of the strictest internet regulators among the world’s democracies.

The blacklist would include subject matter that most of us find abhorrent such as child pornography, sexual violence, bestiality … but where do you draw the line? There’s a very real risk that that anything from regular porn sites and YouTube links to sites on euthanasia, anorexia, or fringe religions from satanic worship to fetishism and even Christian sites could slip onto the banned list. Not to mention that such a broad filter also runs the risk of restricting news coverage of illegal activities.

Political Suicide

The blacklist would apparently be compiled and updated based on complaints from the public, government censors and URLs provided by international agencies. How could these entities not know what’s best for us – let me count the ways! Not only is it is political suicide for a government with a national election looming, but fraught with all sorts of freedom of speech ramifications. Add to that the threat that real educational and informational sites could inadvertently be blocked, and the whole thing is a big, stinking, ill-constructed, and hopefully ill-fated, mess.

Sure, the motivation is noble. We all want to shield our children from seeing things they shouldn’t, which is why children have PARENTS and don’t need the government for a big brother. Besides, most children watch television and there is plenty of cursing, sex and violence on regular programming, let alone the slew of uncensored cable channels or ever-popular video games that anybody can get access to. Does the government plan to monitor and control these too?

That Australia would even toy with internet censorship – at enormous cost to boot – let alone allow the nation to be tarred with the same unfavorable brush as China, where centralized censorship abounds, is beyond me. Search giant Google has just pulled out of doing business in China, to protest such censoring; followed fast by GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain registering company.

Friendships in Jeopardy

Now Google and rival search engine Yahoo are condemning Australia’s proposal, dubbing it a heavy-handed measure that could restrict access to legal information. And even the U.S., Australia’s most coveted security ally, has weighed in. U.S. State Department officials reportedly raised concerns about the planned internet filter, which would defy the free-flow and ease of access to information that define democracy.

From a technical standpoint, the proposed filtering system is so broad that it would likely slow down Internet speed too. Interestingly, when my husband and I first visited Australia together about a decade ago now, technology-savvy husband was impressed at how advanced Australia seemed; the span and sophistication of everything from cell phones to internet speed were leading the pack. Our most recent visit in 2008, revealed something different. Australia, he said, had stood still, while everyone else had caught up and then some. Internet speed was already wanting, and with censorship proposals in the works, Australia could lose its footing as a player in the modern technology arena.

And one more thing, besides the obvious and indecent infringement on freedom of speech and thought, I wonder what happens if deviates can’t freely surf the Internet? Would they be more likely to act on unsavory urges? I’m no therapist, to be sure, but I can’t help but think that keeping cyberspace free and unfiltered is a good thing, especially if it keeps people inside glued to their computers rather than out on the streets causing trouble. This may be naïve of me, like I said I’m no therapist, but hey Prime Minister Rudd, it’s something else you may want to consider.