H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB

LAURIE: Having recently tried on my (red) wedding dress for the first time since July, I am happy to report that it still fits, perhaps even better than it fit on the day that I bought it. This is a huge relief, although now it means that I have to buckle down and deal with the next circle of hell: accessories.

The other day after work I walked down that corridor of lower Fifth Avenue that's lousy with "better" retail names everyone recognizes from the malls of their suburban youth (plus a brand-new H&M store), thinking that I might just luck into my wedding accessories the way I lucked into my dress.

Red shoes are going to be a challenge. All the red shoes I saw fell into two categories: stripper shoes in shiny patent leather, with at least three inches of rickety heel, or smarmy, bow-bedecked flats with a negative arch. I should know better than to express opinions about fashion, since my fantasy wardrobe would come from a janitor's uniform catalog, supplemented by bathrobes, but WTF with the Reagan-era shoe styles? Ditto the cheap-looking plastic necklaces and earrings in primary colors, the kind of shit you wouldn't even sell at a garage sale in 1991.

I'm Andy Rooney, and I clearly cannot rely on mass-produced retail for my wedding needs.

According to Tuesday's Post, Chelsea's former church-cum-Limelight-cum-Avalon-nightclub will be transformed once again--this time, into a shopping center.

"The landlord has decided that he doesn't want to go forward with another nightclub," said broker Frank Terzulli, of Winnick Realty Group. "He's going to cut it up for retail tenants and a restaurant with patio seating."

Sources also inform the Post that this new gothic mini-mall's anchor will likely be another H&M....

Wait. You're telling us that creepy kitsch specialist Spencer Gifts isn't interested in opening a Manhattan flagship? Quelle horreur! - Chris Shott

• William Lescaze's 6,800-square-foot 1935 Upper East Side modernist masterpiece is on the market for $8 million. What do the commentators say? "It's hideous." And: "A shit for a house [sic] only an architect would fall in love with. Raze it. It was hideous then and it's hideous now." [Curbed]
• Why have the French disallowed H&M from opening a 50-million-Euro flagship? "There is a risk that the Champs Elysees could become banal," the head of planning for Paris's City Council said. She added, zestfully, "We have nothing against H&M." [Times of London, via ArchNewsNow]
• Real estate search engine Trulia has formed a big-name advisory board "to help with strategic planning." Are they planning a new-wave techno-real-estate monopoly? Or maybe a take-down of REBNY? [Matrix]
• Rule of the Day: Cobble Hill may never again be celebrated "for the sheer depth" of its glassware collectibles stores. [Apartment Therapy]
- Max Abelson
• 0 comments

Lease deadlines and rising rents have cut discount retailer Daffy’s out of the upper-middle-brow shopping stretch on Fifth Avenue between 14th and 23rd. And H & M will take its place.

The Fifth Avenue and 18th Street branch has shackled its windows and closed its doors with a sign that reads, “lost our lease.”

The store’s lease expires this month and with real estate prices mounting high, it simply could not afford the landlord’s new rate. Richard Kramer, Vice President, CFO of Daffy’s, explained, “In terms of the rental costs, from an economics point of view, it did not make sense to stay there.”

The New York Law Journal reported back in September that European retailer H&M will open its ninth New York City location in the 21,000-square foot space.

Next door, Intermix, a chain of high priced fashions befit for celebrity closets, mysteriously disappeared too. But that site is simply under construction, and its Michael Kors shoes have relocated to a temporary outpost one avenue east.

The move to Broadway happened in a matter of two days, where they took the place of exited housewares store Villeroy and Boch. Intermix plans to return to Fifth Avenue in about two months. Meanwhile, Daffy’s is actively looking for another Manhattan home.  read more »

-- Riva Froymovich

After three months of resort road rage and frenzied shark attacks at our nation's beaches, it's time  read more »

Take your boyfriend on a shopping jaunt along Fifth Avenue,and here are some of the things you might  read more »

I don't wear makeup.Not in that sexy, Julianne-Moore-profiled-in- Jane kind of way, where she arrive  read more »

You can see them out there every weekday morning, in wrinkled skirts and shirts, treating the city's  read more »

What should you do if you find a matchbook from Scores or the VIP Club in your guy's jacket pocket?1  read more »

On the fourth floor of an office building on Fifth Avenue, 50 New Yorkers were preparing to depart f  read more »