SMYLONYLON

Smylonylon (pronounced SMILE-on-NY-lon) was a vintage clothing boutique in downtown Manhattan. It opened in 1994 on Crosby St. shortly before relocating to 222 Lafayette Street (Manhattan). ["HERE NOW; A Place Where Nylon Isn't a Dirty Word" by Gia Kourlas New York Times, [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1D91338F93AA15752C0A963958260 January 29 1995] ]

The store was owned and operated by Chris Brick (of Family of God and Demob Clothing) and his wife Judy (singer Linda Lamb), who, in 1993, happened to come into a large supply of dead stock clothing from the 1970s ["smylonylon" by Chris Brick and Alex Gloor, zing magazine, vol. 10. [http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing10/smylon/index.html] ] . Most certainly their eclectic tastes in music influenced the atmosphere of the store, perhaps even more than the clothing, and Chris worked with his friend Alex Gloor to tirelessly produce mixtapes of their rare record collections, which ranged from South American exotica and French orchestral music to Italo-Disco, musique concrete, and minimal synth. Alex Gloor is currently in the band In Flagranti on Codek Records Europe [http://www.codek.com/cre.html] and which has a somewhat Italo-Disco sound. There are 30 volumes of mixtapes with the Smylonylon title, and others bearing the titles Tynynyny (named after a legendary West Village party thrown by the store's crew) and Arkle & Sparkle (the name of the later and larger incarnation of the original store). Some of these mixtapes can be found on the music blog Dalston Oxfam Shop [http://dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com] [http://dalstonoxfamshop.blogspot.com/2008/04/smylonylon-18-diskolos-mixtape.html] After Arkle & Sparkle, the store was called Center for the Dull, which was also briefly a record label used as the vehicle for Brick's band Family of God. The store closed in late 2002 due to an increase in rent.

References