I STUMBLED into a United Nude store for the first time a couple of weeks ago in Miami. I was curious, because I was told that the creative director of the store was the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. This turned out to be completely specious.
United Nude’s creative director is the Dutch architect Rem D. Koolhaas, who is not to be confused with his esteemed uncle, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, but there is confusion, to the obvious advantage of Rem D. His partner in United Nude is Galahad Clark, a member of the family that has controlled the Clarks shoe empire for seven generations. So it is safe to say that nepotism has played some role in the formation of United Nude. But the Koolhaas name, however misleading, got me in the door. Elastic Sandals Quotes
Once inside, a pair of black elastic X Wedge sandals managed to sweet-talk their way onto my feet. I liked where they sat on the spectrum of summer shoes: tall enough to keep your naked feet elevated above filthy New York sidewalks and sexy, but with a bit of growl and bite to them — something Tank Girl might wear to a Brooklyn tailgate party. They were relatively comfortable and not blister-inducing, so I was hooked for $215 and curious enough about United Nude to swing by the store on Bond Street once back in New York.
The store describes itself as “a dark-shop concept” — i.e., it’s bloody dark in there. On the floor is what it calls a “Lo Res” sculpture: a shiny black jewel-faceted art thing that looks sort of like a fetal Lamborghini. The only illuminated area is its trademarked Wall of Light, a jumpy, computer-controlled LED edifice that throbs discothequishly in ever-changing colors and serves as a backlight behind the open cubbyholes showcasing the shoes. The colors dramatically undulate to the soundtrack, which bounces from Lady Gaga to Edith Piaf, so if you need to know what colors the shoes actually are, you basically need to wait for a lull in the rhythm section.
And the shoes are colorful. A good percentage of them are constructed of nifty, sturdy elastics, woven (I was told by a salesman) at the company’s textile factory in China. These are striped in glamorously clashing, saturated designer colors — neon pinks on midnight blues on egg-yolk yellows on tree-frog greens — and a whole Pantone wheel of kicky hues in combinations redolent of summer-camp lanyards or Pendleton Navajo blankets. The thicker elastics are grooved, leafy and wide enough to be folded over a bootie form (in three different heel heights, from grandma to mum to little nymphet), from which the ankle seems to emerge organically like the stem of a skunk cabbage. (A flat rainbow bootie with a thin sneaker sole is $175.)
There are rubberized pastel and neutral-colored flats (most around $70) and heels of an injection-molded chemical substance that the store calls “vegetan” leather. These, for the most part, look like what happens when a chubby little pair of Crocs is picked up at a nightclub and ends up passed out in a hotel sauna.
The United Nude stores seem to go out of their way to employ attractive 20-something scamps who really can’t be bothered by such annoyances as actual customers. The art-school imp on Bond Street was barely aware of anything but her own intricate wonderfulness until I finally walked up to the register with a two-tone elastic macramé pump in my hand ($235) and asked for a pair to try on.
“I think that one’s probably your size,” she said, with an economy of interest. “Try that one on and see if it fits, and then if you want, I’ll go get you the other one.”
She had mastered the soft sell, anyway.
In one of the essays in the seminal book “S, M, L, XL,” the original Rem Koolhaas declared that, among other things, progress, identity and the city were no more. “Relief ... it’s over. That is the story of the city. The city is no longer. We can leave the theatre now.”
It may sometimes seem that my critical approach to retail fashion has been to go in like Laurence Olivier in “Marathon Man” with a tray of power tools intent on performing involuntary dental surgery on designers while dementedly screaming, “Is it safe?!”
But I have been looking for generosity of vision. I ask clothes questions, like: Who are you for? What do you say about the person who wears you? Are you functional? Have you discovered an empowering, liberating new silhouette — like Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent so nobly did in their days — that calls forth strengths never before realized in the feminine character? Or are you bombing women back to the Goldwater era? Does this line help my life or hinder it? In short: Is it safe!?
United Nude: Yeah, it’s safe. It’s pretty thin gruel. Nothing groundbreaking in the way of architecture theory, certainly, but there are decent examples of footwear, if you like that kind of thing.
This will be my last dispatch as your Critical Shopper. This column has been a singular joy and privilege to write, and I will miss your readership. Whenever you find the mate to your perfect bondage-boot hidden under one of the couches at Barneys on sale day, I will be with you in spirit.
Until then, may you be United in Nudity — with or without Rem D. Koolhaas.
25 Bond Street (between Lafayette Street and the Bowery); (212) 420-6000.
WOOED Borrowing a bit heavily from the name and fame of his architect uncle, Rem Koolhaas, the architect Rem D. Koolhaas and his partner, Galahad Clark, present an interesting, if somewhat dilettante-ish, collection of footwear designs and pretensions.
RUDE If you’re the type who is easily put off by an aloof sales staff, don’t bother, but this is a fun place to go dip your toes in the pungent attitude. Part of the flora, if you will.
Warm Fluffy Slippers Factory SCANTILY SHOED In the end, the footwear isn’t bad for designery-looking chunks of molded plastic with big Chinese elastic straps all over them. And, like nudity, the price range covers just about everyone.