The Magazine Shoppe

As you flip through the pages of your favorite glossy, ever wish you could go to one store to pick up all of the featured products you've just read about? You're not alone.

Lee puts every item under intense scrutiny before deeming it Microzine-worthy.

Chris Lee, a former creative director at Reebok and current DKNY creative director, felt the same way. That's what led him a few years ago to open the first branch of Microzine, a men's store that's based entirely on the concept of a magazine.

"It's a men's walk-in magazine with everything from fashion to technology to home wares to liquor," says Erica Baptista, the manager of Microzine's London store. The first Microzine opened in London's Islington neighborhood in 2003 and last November re-located to the überhip West End. The 800-square-foot store (an edited version of their larger 6,000-square-foot Liverpool location, which opened in March 2005) is packed with an ever-changing stock of the latest clothes, gadgets, furniture, and art. The Liverpool store even has its own café and bar.

So what type of people shop here? Says brand manager Jackie Dunning, "People who are looking for something they know not everyone's going to have." Most of Microzine's products are one-of-a-kind or very hard to come by. Their trainers (aka sneakers to Yanks), for example, are almost all limited editions and sometimes sell out before their actual release date. Microzine is just one of 20 stores in the world to stock Clydezillas, Pumas that are limited to 360 pairs worldwide.

The creative force behind Microzine is Lee and his wife, Jill, who put every potential item of merchandise under intense scrutiny before deeming it Microzine-worthy. They look for the most innovative and trendsetting items, but they also look for those that jive like a feature story in a magazine. "We only stock items with a story behind them," says Dunning, such as a vintage Lomo camera that represents the nondigital take-pictures-wherever-and-whenever Lomography culture or a book about news-making graffiti artist Bansky. In fact, the stories behind their merchandise are soon to inspire a print version of Microzine.

While some items can be preordered or purchased on the Microzine Web site, most are available only at the stores. And once they're gone, they're gone - or as they say in the media biz: fish wrap.

Posted on September 04, 2006