Mirror, Mirror: Fashion retailers open own downtown stores

Sure, Brooklyn Industries has cutting-edge fashions. It features miniskirts with detachable suspenders, color-blocked dresses, and checked shirtwaist frocks - all of them designed, manufactured and sold by its owner, Lexy Funk.

But the store that opened on Walnut Street in February also is on the edge of another fashion trend: All-in-one retailers once destined for malls are now returning to the urban storefront - in some cases, replacing the boutiques known for showcasing a smattering of outside designers.

Diesel and North Face, both of which design and manufacture all of their clothes, are the latest of these kinds of fashion tenants to set up shop on the upscale Rittenhouse Row.

"That's the direction fashion retail is going, especially on Walnut Street," said Laurence Steinberg, principal at commercial real estate firm Michael Salove Co.

"Companies have to manufacture their own merchandise to pay these $100-plus-square-foot rents," said Steinberg, who also hinted that a menswear and womenswear store, both mall staples, are currently negotiating for a Walnut Street address. "You can't be a reseller in this economy and effectively compete."

Funk had her eye on a Walnut Street spot for the last two years. So when the rents recently fell, she seized the opportunity.

The art and art history major at Wesleyan College supported herself as a commercial photographer for several years before she married her husband, Vahap Avsar. She then took a full-time job at an ad agency, but in 1998 the two started Brooklyn Industries selling canvas messenger bags and T-shirts.

"My husband and I are both artists and we got in this as a way to solve the problem of how to make a living being artistic," Funk said one recent Thursday afternoon as we toured the Philadelphia store.

"Our goal has always been to live, work, and create. In that order. . . . We want to take things that are already out there and make them better."

Their formula seems to be working. Today Brooklyn Industries is a full men's and women's apparel line. Sales in 2009 were more than $13 million, and the company has 13 stores in four cities including Portland, Ore., and Chicago. Brooklyn Industries will open its 15th store next month in Boston in another artsy warehouse space.

Inside, there are cardigans in bold reds and greens that have removable brooches. Contrasting buttons dazzle on striped dresses. Sweatshirts feature exposed zippers. Men's crisp button-up shirts are dotted with images of pigeons and rats. (Seems kind of weird, but it's actually cool.)

Funk's design aesthetic not only is apparent in her clothing, it's a central part of Brooklyn Industries' overall look. Her streetscape photographs are in prominent places throughout the Philadelphia store, and Funk is the photographer for all of the company's images.

She's not the only artist using fashion for her canvas here.

Take another Brooklyn-named company, Brooklyn Royalty. Creative director Bob Bland moved to West Philadelphia last summer, and, similar to Funk, she is selling a men's and women's line of clothing embossed with urban-inspired graphic art.

This month, art enthusiast Christos Karabelas, 23, launched Company Policy Apparel, a collaborative effort of about half a dozen Philadelphia-based artists who make screen-printed T-shirts and organic hoodies.

Funk wants to highlight artists by turning part of the Walnut Street space, probably the top floor, into a hub for local artists to show their work. At the same time, the company is asking Philadelphians to submit their art, everything from graphic designs to sculptures, to www.brooklynindustries.com/lwc/.

"Everything about our store revolves around art," Funk said. "We are inspired by artists, philosophers, movies. Everything that is art."