In the spring of 1997, John Galliano showed a coterie of cheongsam dresses in one of his first collections for Dior. (“The hot new long look for evening,” wrote the New York Times.)
In the fall of 1997, Helmut Lang sent models down the runway wearing black-and-white Kung Fu slippers. (“This shoe is like a mantra,” Candy Pratts Price told the paper.)
It was a turning point for Pearl River Mart, the Chinatown emporium which had sold cheongsam dresses and Kung Fu slippers long before late-’90s fashion insiders decided to embrace chinoiserie. And from then on, it sold a lot more of them.
“We never meant to be part of fashion,” said Pearl River’s president Ching Yeh Chen, recalling the long love affair between her 45-year-old department store and New York City’s fashion community. “But then we got recognized. Our existence became part of fashion.” In the ’90s, Sassy stylists and designers like Isaac Mizrahi made rummaging through the store’s racks of silk pajamas a downtown pastime. Meanwhile, Pearl River evolved to serve its new influx of customers with inventory that was cheeky, creative, and cheap (particularly if you were used to Dior prices).
I met Mrs. Chen the other day in the tea mezzanine above Pearl River’s 30,000-square-foot Broadway space. At 70, she still works six days a week in the store alongside her husband, 77-year-old founder Ming Yi Chen. Over a fragrant jasmine brew, we talked about the store’s history. In 1971, when it first opened, “Nobody even knew what Soy Sauce was,” she remembered. “We were starting from there.” At that time, Chinese goods were hardly accessible in the United States, thanks to a trade ban in effect for more than two decades. The original Pearl River was filled with goods imported via Hong Kong or Canada: sweetened kumquats and sliced jellyfish, as well as Maoist books and Cultural Revolution posters. For Mr. Chen, an activist and chemistry PhD who came to the United States for graduate school, this was as more than a mom-and-pop operation: it was a political statement.
That following year, trade embargos loosened following President Nixon’s visit to China. Enter the paper lanterns, Tiger Balm, and later, bamboo furniture and Japanese porcelain that would make Pearl River one of the city’s most singular shopping experiences. When it first opened, shoppers were almost entirely Chinese. By 1986, when Pearl River moved into a larger space on Canal Street, shoppers was about 50 percent Chinese, 50 percent a mish-mash of greater New York. “People came here and felt this was a secret that no one else knows,” Mrs. Chen said. “It became a treasure island.”
In the ‘90s, items from the store started to appear in fashion editorials. One paired a satin pajama top with Marques’Almeida-esque denim, another styled one with “accessories from Betsey Johnson’s personal wardrobe.” For a Seventeen shoot in 2000, Christina Aguilera went on a shopping spree at Pearl River, brandishing a Samurai sword and getting inside a giant paper dragon. (Caption: “Genie In a New Year’s Eve Mask?”) As writer Michelle Chen, Mr. and Mrs. Chen’s daughter, wrote in an essay about the evolution of the store, “The atmosphere of swirling SinoChic embodies the steady gentrification of the store from a proletarian mom-and-pop affair to a one-stop shop for all of your Asian kitsch needs.”
In the fall of 1997, Helmut Lang sent models down the runway wearing black-and-white Kung Fu slippers. (“This shoe is like a mantra,” Candy Pratts Price told the paper.)
It was a turning point for Pearl River Mart, the Chinatown emporium which had sold cheongsam dresses and Kung Fu slippers long before late-’90s fashion insiders decided to embrace chinoiserie. And from then on, it sold a lot more of them.
“We never meant to be part of fashion,” said Pearl River’s president Ching Yeh Chen, recalling the long love affair between her 45-year-old department store and New York City’s fashion community. “But then we got recognized. Our existence became part of fashion.” In the ’90s, Sassy stylists and designers like Isaac Mizrahi made rummaging through the store’s racks of silk pajamas a downtown pastime. Meanwhile, Pearl River evolved to serve its new influx of customers with inventory that was cheeky, creative, and cheap (particularly if you were used to Dior prices).
I met Mrs. Chen the other day in the tea mezzanine above Pearl River’s 30,000-square-foot Broadway space. At 70, she still works six days a week in the store alongside her husband, 77-year-old founder Ming Yi Chen. Over a fragrant jasmine brew, we talked about the store’s history. In 1971, when it first opened, “Nobody even knew what Soy Sauce was,” she remembered. “We were starting from there.” At that time, Chinese goods were hardly accessible in the United States, thanks to a trade ban in effect for more than two decades. The original Pearl River was filled with goods imported via Hong Kong or Canada: sweetened kumquats and sliced jellyfish, as well as Maoist books and Cultural Revolution posters. For Mr. Chen, an activist and chemistry PhD who came to the United States for graduate school, this was as more than a mom-and-pop operation: it was a political statement.
That following year, trade embargos loosened following President Nixon’s visit to China. Enter the paper lanterns, Tiger Balm, and later, bamboo furniture and Japanese porcelain that would make Pearl River one of the city’s most singular shopping experiences. When it first opened, shoppers were almost entirely Chinese. By 1986, when Pearl River moved into a larger space on Canal Street, shoppers was about 50 percent Chinese, 50 percent a mish-mash of greater New York. “People came here and felt this was a secret that no one else knows,” Mrs. Chen said. “It became a treasure island.”
In the ‘90s, items from the store started to appear in fashion editorials. One paired a satin pajama top with Marques’Almeida-esque denim, another styled one with “accessories from Betsey Johnson’s personal wardrobe.” For a Seventeen shoot in 2000, Christina Aguilera went on a shopping spree at Pearl River, brandishing a Samurai sword and getting inside a giant paper dragon. (Caption: “Genie In a New Year’s Eve Mask?”) As writer Michelle Chen, Mr. and Mrs. Chen’s daughter, wrote in an essay about the evolution of the store, “The atmosphere of swirling SinoChic embodies the steady gentrification of the store from a proletarian mom-and-pop affair to a one-stop shop for all of your Asian kitsch needs.”
Click through the slideshow to see the day-to-night looks that OC's Personal Stylist 
Jenn wears the Mugler Bicolor Cady 431
Click through the slideshow to see the day-to-night looks that OC's Personal Stylist 
Elise wears the Isa Arfen 
Photos by 
Opening Ceremony Piped Top in black, 
Photos by 
Photos by 
Photos by 
, brightly lit with floodlights and under the supervision of someone in a blazer kindly reminding them of the “no photo” policy. The Four Nights Only event, La Rosa Social Club, explodes through any preconceived notion of what a gallery or art installation can be, delivering uncompromising talent in an atmosphere that is beyond curated and inviting. In conjunction with this year’s LA Art Book Fair, artist Aaron Rose, working with his gallery partner Johann Von Lanzenauer and 
Click through the slideshow to see the day-to-night looks that OC's Personal Stylist 
Tatiana wears the Alexander Wang 
Images courtesy of Blundstone
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Vintage Blundstone ad. Photos courtesy of Blundstone
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Photos by Patrick Spears
Photos courtesy of Chromat/Getty Images
Photos by Angela Pham for BFA
Guest and Charli XCX
Faran Krentcil, Ian Bradley, and Fiona Byrne
Charli XCX
Lisa TV and Adam Selman
TK Wonder, Abrima Erwiah, Rosario Dawson, Christelle de Castro, and Cipriana Quann
Ruth Gruca
London Ziloh
Rosario Dawson
Carol, Rosario Dawson, and Humberto
Amandla Stenberg
Claire Geist, Natalie Suarez, and Dylana Suarez
Teuta Memedi
OC’s Nathan and Ashley
Kristin Zakala
OC’s Oak, Tyler, and Blake
OC’s Malcolm, Sally, Jinnah, and Andrew
Anthony Dicapua
Vashtie
Photos by Greg Kessler, Matt Kelly, and Patrick Spears
