March 28-April 3, 2002

naked city

Denim Nation

jean therapy: Denim meets design at Center Cityís new Diesel boutique.

Diesel adds drama to buying a pair of jeans.

by A.D. Amorosi

If, in the last several years, denim has truly arrived as fashion’s most theatrical fabric, appearing in dozens of fades, washes and oxidations created by everything from copper and coffee to toffee and tea, then the places that sell jeans must also intensify their look to match their wares.

With the Gap a dying entity and tonier stores offering expensively priced Sevens and Mavis, denim's mall sprawl is just about over.

In University City, Smith Bros.' seventh area shop sells jeans, from Diesel to Miss Sixty, in an environment resembling an opulently appointed cruise liner. All ramps, railings and long windows, Smith Bros.' sexy high-seas interior is like a siren calling out to teens: "Buy me. I ride low on your hips."

The Lucky Brand store, near Rittenhouse Square, opts for high ceilings and a pricey, sporty interior for that b-balling gladiator feel. Imagine Russell Crowe in long, baggy shorts and a breastplate and you're Lucky.

But the new Diesel store on Walnut Street has another plan. The store is a mix and match of Bauhaus, Pucci, '70s, Victorian, pop moderne, baroque and beyond, selling pants with names like Boot Cut Fankers, Stenxes and Raboxes. (The names of the various pant cuts flash along an electronic display in the store.)

The trippy drama begins with a window display: a daisy-filled forest and silver Mylar flooring sprouting mushrooms, in keeping with Diesel USA's new psychedelic theme, Happy Valley. Like a great opera, the company has created an antihero fat man, the red-mohawked, lasciviously grinning Donald Diesel, to guide you through your shopping experience. Pictures, lollipops and figurines sporting the Donald ripple throughout, as do butterfly appliqués, tattered gold-gilded mirrors and creamsicle-orange display cases either hung high (screwed into the battered brick walls with cheesy polyurethaned wood grains) or placed as floor units on rugs and glazed concrete.

Stare upward and it's pure warehouse bliss, all vents and girders; more like a gymnasium than a boutique. Shag rugs, deer antlers, ugly framed seascapes and ship prints, beat-up old church pews, dining-room tables with elephant-head corners and lawyerly leather chairs lead you from front to back, depositing you nearest the very Brady Bunch wood-panel staircase that will take you to floor two.

Creative Director of Diesel USA, Dennis Askins (scion of Philly's Askins Models) came up with this great googly-moogling mishmash, equal parts boxing ring, familial den and Chinese whorehouse. The 32-year-old Askins managed the art deco gallery Moderne before heading to Diesel.

"Moderne may have been heavy with deco, but we had such a large inventory that we touched on everything from Bauhaus through the '70s," Askins says. From there, his taste in design elements exploded into what's now the basic style (with some differences) of every Diesel store in America.

"We like an environment that combines the simplicity of a modern space -- often industrial -- with elements you might find in a home," Askins explains. "It's important to warm up a space by using wood and stone as well as staying on the cutting edge with new materials. I think that's how the stores reflect the clothes."

The stone-against-metal with weirdly blended textiles, plastics and such continues on the second floor and its extended balcony. Here, Diesel Philly takes on an even more theatrical feel, allowing you to peek down at shoppers to your voyeuristic delight or stare up at the Asian-fusion chandelier.

Mannequins stand rigid on ramped light boxes. Big '70s bulbs burn into your eyes so that you can't tell if the Victorian couch is really spotted or if the colors of the deep pile rugs are some hilariously horrid green, brown and purple. This makes Diesel a perfect spot for disco DJ parties, art-gallery balls and Pac-Man video-game matches, all a part of Askins' design for Diesel's Union Square shop in Manhattan.

"The technical aspects of the store and the theatrical aspects should affect you moment to moment," Askins says. "If you are going to ask people to come to your space and spend money, I think it is important to give something back when possible. We're not just selling jeans or a brand. We're selling brand recognition in relation to lifestyle. The store becomes an extension of public theater, a place to check each other out in a comfortable environment while challenging the consumers by taking them out of their normal routine."

Diesel, 1507 Walnut St., 215-561-2557.