MANILA, Philippines – NEW YORK Call it the demarcation of the neighbor-hood.
On the corner of Bleecker and West 11th Streets, on the exact same spot where West Village institution Biography Bookshop used to stand, is now Bookmarc the fourth Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker Street, adding up the total to six Marc Jacobs retail outlets in the Village alone and the first ever Marc Jacobs book store.
Bookmarc opened to low-key fanfare last Sept. 3, via three tweets by company president Robert Duffy, who personally rang up purchases behind the cashier’s counter. Those seemed enough to get the crowd flocking to the newly opened shop.
When I came over to check on the goods just a few days later, the store was filled with an assortment of folks, who were most likely drawn in from the street by the frenzied indoor activities.
Customers that frequent the Marc Jacobs special items store down the road (now a Marc Jacobs collection accessories store selling $3,000 bags) will find that the best-sellers sold there tote bags (eco $9, cotton $15, canvas $28), water bottles ($5), lipstick pens ($3.50), and keychains ($5), have now found a new home at Bookmarc.
New additions are Bookmarc totes ($20), customized Sharpies (from $1.25) and ring bound notebooks and journals (from $16) with cheeky titles like The Gay Gatsby, Breakfast at Bleecker and Moby’s Dick.
Bookstore staples like pencil cases ($13), pouches (from $10) and pencil sets (from $8) round up the school and stationary supplies mix.
As with all of Marc Jacobs’s special items, you will not expect to pay more than $30 a piece. But, here’s the best deal of the lot a free Bookmarc bookmark that customers can pick up from the counter.
The store is also set to carry vinyl records and CDs.
Set-up to be a bookstore after all, the tiny shop is well stocked with an impressive, well-edited selection of coffee table books and hard to find tomes, concentrating on pop culture topics encompassing fashion, music, show business, the arts and its celebrities.
From Joan Jett to Warhol, Cindy to Oprah, they’ve got it covered. As if to prove how seriously Bookmarc is into books, on top of their book pile is a photography book commissioned by Duffy himself titled The Men and Women of Marc Jacobs by Brian Bowen Smith.
Said to be “a celebration of the kind of people who work at Marc Jacobs” Smith told Women’s Wear Daily, it is what it is a collection of photographs including Marc Jacobs, Robert Duffy and the people who work for their expanding empire.
Granted that bookstores have always been popular haunts for students, the discerning student of style including those with a collegiate budget will most certainly be drawn to Bookmarc.