# A Hide Out From the Ordinary

- Link: https://exclusiveaccess.net/a-hide-out-from-the-ordinary/
- Published: 2013-04-11T17:42:02-04:00
- Author: EAN

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IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME since a new store, the brick-and-mortar kind, for those of
you who can remember, has set out to do something more surprising than sell clothes.
But then, entertaining the customer has become a low-priority line item on most 
retailers’ budgets these days. Jon Koon, the designer of Private Stock, a label 
you surely have never heard of, evidently does not have this problem. Mr. Koon is
fashion’s version of Nick D’Aloisio, the 17-year-old who made a fortune by selling
an app to Yahoo last month. Only Mr. Koon, who made his first million at 16 with
a customized auto parts business from his home in Queens, wants to be more like 
Mark Zuckerberg. Before starting his gussied up streetwear line three years ago,
he designed air fresheners that look like spinning car rims and other items that
fall into the general category of vehicular bling, became a partner in the fashion
collection of [Young Jeezy](http://ticketmaster.evyy.net/c/4256257/264167/4272?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ticketmaster.com%2Fjeezy-tickets%2Fartist%2F973006)
and started a denim line with Domenico Vacca. He is now 29.

This is essential information to know before setting foot in Mr. Koon’s Private 
Stock store, which opened last weekend at 76 Wooster Street in SoHo, a virtual time
warp to the pre-recession days of outrageous ostentation and a vastly entertaining
space where selling clothes seems to be of the least priority. The first outfit 
you will encounter is so expensive it is displayed behind glass: a $4,628 deerskin
hoodie and matching $1,898 shorts with white gold-plated zippers and a pedigree 
so complicated it requires an accompanying wall text. (Abridged version: superfine
New Zealand deerskin tanned in Italy, then processed in Kyoto, Japan, with a hand
ring-spun dying technique to create a floral kimono pattern, then bonded to lightweight
chambray in Okayama. Heck, it’s even machine washable.)

Like the space, the name Private Stock is intended to suggest something exclusive,
tucked away for those in the know and of the means to afford it. But Mr. Koon is
also a bit of a showman, and the store is worth exploring because it is so over 
the top. Some accessories are displayed behind panels of frosted glass that turn
transparent at the flip of a switch (like the famous bathroom stalls of the recently
closed Bar 89 on Mercer Street). Hanging like paintings on a wall are chairs constructed
from leftover garments from Mr. Koon’s previous collection — shirts and jeans were
dipped in resin, molded and baked into the shape of a chair. New jeans, mostly produced
in limited editions with carefully crafted patches, stitches and washes, are individually
displayed in vertical drawers that roll out from the walls.

And visible from a cutout in the center of the store is a large, jaw-dropping koi
pond, stocked with fish imported from Japan at a cost of $50,000, in the basement,
where there are also showrooms designed for big-fish clients.

“Private Stock likes to be hidden,” Mr. Koon said. “We want people to walk in here
and feel like they have found something secret, and they don’t even want to share
it with their friends.”

Because Mr. Koon, a Chinese-American who was born and raised in New York, is superstitious,
he incorporated the lucky number eight in most elements of his design. There are
18 fish, 28 light fixtures, and the clothes hangers fit into customized grooves 
on the racks so that the items hang 6.8 inches apart. Dress shirts cost $248 to 
$368. Jeans start at $248. A sharp navy Windbreaker costs $448.

You get the picture: Mr. Koon is very precise in his measurements, right down to
the shade of white he uses on the walls, a custom matte blend with a powdery finish.
He liked that white so much that he painted two framed canvases white on white in
the back of the store. That’s the only space where there’s nothing to see.

###### By 󠀁[ERIC WILSON](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/eric_wilson/index.html)󠁿