Emiika Style: Hip T-Shirts and Locally Made Accessories

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Everyone needs a good statement t-shirt, one that you can wear proudly out and about, comfortable yet stylish. Emiika is a clothing store in Madrid for such an occasion.

At Emiika you’ll find casual attire for both men and women. Each of the t-shirts has a different message, some political and others simply creative and thought-provoking. If you’ve already got too many t-shirts, browse through their selection of jeans, dresses and even jackets or sweaters (according to the season). All of the items are made by hand and fit in well with the laid-back vibe of the store. The price for most of their clothing is between 25 to 100 euros.

Though it was the t-shirts that first got my attention, their locally made accessories are some of their best sellers. The headbands, jewelry and pins are all the work of various local artists, each with a signature style. The owner of Emiika, Pedro, generously opens his doors to artists who are interested in selling their items in his shop, he also contributes his designs as well.

Pedro is all about supporting the community, often hosting open-house expositions in the basement of his shop. During these events, artists can display their paintings, clothing and accessories to the public. Check the store for more information about their upcoming events.

Emiika Style
Calle Corredera Baja de San Pablo, 53
Neighborhood: triBall
Metro: Tribunal
Hours: Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. – 14:30 p.m., 17:30 p.m. – 21:00 p.m.

By Alondra Palomino

La Linterna Roja – One of a Kind Clothing

About 5 years ago a project began on Calle de San Mateo to help revitalize the red-light district of the city. Inspired by the transformations of Soho neighborhoods in both New York and London, it would eventually become triBall, a neighborhood where you can find up-and-coming artists and designers.

One of stores that pioneered this change was La Lanterne Rouge (La Linterna Roja). What was once a brothel, became a clothing shop, café and theatre all in one. It was one of the first shops to help draw talented artists into this neighborhood. This summer, La Linterna Roja is moving from their location on Calle de Ballesta, to Corredera Baja de San Pablo (just a few blocks over).Cecilia, the store manager for the new location, points out that while there was a lot of history in their site, they aim to bring the creativity to their new store.

The clothing and accessories at La Linterna Roja are hand-picked by Cecilia and other staff members. While there are various types of clothing items, the dresses are particularly striking ranging from the more casual to something you would wear for a special occasion. Here you can find blouses, hand-painted skirts and even Asian-inspired silk dresses. The majority of the clothing is for women, but head towards the back of the store to find a men’s section. The clothes come from Spanish brands like Chula (based in Vietnam), Miuky and include designers like Dama Dama accessories. The prices start at about 15 euros and can go up towards 200 euros for each piece.

La Linterna Roja
Corredera Baja de San Pablo, 45
Neighborhood: triBall
Metro: Tribunal
Hours: Monday-Saturday from 12:00 p.m. – 15:00 p.m., then 17:00 p.m. -21:00 p.m.

By Alondra Palomino

KLING: Creative Women’s Clothing

If you find yourself bored with the usual chain retail clothing stores, wander away from the busy roads of La Gran Via to the small street of calle Ballesta. Along the way you’ll pass the red-light district and various cafes, but at last you’ll see the black framed windows of KLING, a unique and creative women’s clothing store.

I met with Estella, one of the staff members of KLING, to find out what makes this different from the other clothing stores in the area. The concept is simple- to offer one of a kind designs that bring something different from what you see at the large chain stores. As you browse through their collection you may notice that all of their items are hung up- nothing is folded or out of reach. All of their shirts, skirts, pants and dresses are individually sorted by style and color. Estella gladly helped to point out pieces that could be combined with things each of us already own to create a completely new look. Their selection ranges from vintage-inspired dresses, hand-crafted jewelry and accessories, as well as items with more modern flair.

During each first Sunday of the month, KLING opens its doors and offers free tea and cake. Often, a local artist and their designs are featured (Click here for more details). Another treat at KLING are their prices, most items range from 20-50 euros. Each of the locations also has a fantastic sales rack priced at 10 euros. With an indie style and affordable prices, KLING has gained the admiration of many abroad and in Spain. Currently, they have various locations around Europe and four throughout Madrid.

KLING
Ballesta, 6
Neighborhood: Gran Via
Metro: Gran Via
Hours: Monday-Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 21:00 p.m.
First Sunday of each month, 12:00 p.m. -21:00 p.m.

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By Alondra Palomino

1 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Calle de la Ballesta, 7

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Film and Art Bookshop in Madrid

Anyone who likes film and is interested in the making of movies will feel like a kid in a Toys ‘R’ Us at Ocho y Medio. And just like a kid in the toy store you might feel slightly overwhelmed—undecided as to where to begin, freaking out with all the cool stuff around you. 8 ½ is a bookstore on steroids stacked with pretty much everything that has to do with the world of cinema except the actual movies themselves. Photographs, posters, mugs, memorabilia, magazines and a very large selection of literature are at hand for your enjoyment, but also theater, photography, journalism and to a lesser extent classic literature have a strong presence too.

Located a block away from Plaza Espana, the store welcomes you with high ceilings, wooden floors and well thought out spacing. To the right of the entrance there is a small area dedicated to film magazines and journals, from popular publications like Fotogramas to foreign film magazines from Mexico and Italy. Crossing the main room you will find a few chairs and tables that make up the store´s café. That´s right. Even if you don’t plan to buy anything, you can still enjoy a coffee and a biscuit while looking over something to read. If you´re hungry, there are actually sandwiches, desserts and ice cream available as well.

The elegant main room is completely dedicated to books, meticulously organized bookshelves stand too high for the eye to reach. There are hundreds of categories and movie guides to the best movies by year, theme or actor, movie trivia and everything in between. Perhaps the best selection is that of movie scripts.

The variety is imposing to say the least, each section offers many books on its subject. There are sections about the history of international and national cinema as well as of radio and television. There are biographies available of just about every actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. There are essays on theory of film, the technicalities of directing and perils of producing, and how-to guides abound. As far as books about movie making techniques go, there are enough for almost every niche: sound, production, music, digital, costume design, editing, etc.

The narrower section past this chic and improvised café is reserved, mostly, for accessories: Woody Allen magnets, Marilyn Monroe mugs, life sized heads of campy horror classic characters, movie themed notebooks—the works. But let´s not forget the main attraction of these money funneling garnishes, movie posters. Those who´d rather have movie posters than paintings hanging in their houses will be pleasantly surprised because there is a large selection of popular, cult and classic posters available. You´ll find the typical Fight Club and Pulp Fiction posters, but also ones of classics like Chinatown and the original King Kong and even of Italian or German films from the 20´s and 30´s you might never have heard of.

One would think the store would end there, but there is actually a narrow passageway that leads to a second smaller room. In here you will either find large photographic books—those expensive, impressive and comprehensive collections of specific subjects like wildlife in Africa or modern art in the 1960´s—or classic literature like the works of Hemingway, Wolf and Borges.

8 ½ is the kind of place that encourages you to relax and take your time browsing. How can you not when there are hundreds of titles in English, Spanish, French and Italian that you may never have heard of.

Ocho y Medio Libros de Cine
Calle Martin de los Heros 11
Metro: Plaza Espana/ Noviciado
915 590 628
Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 14:00 p.m, and from 17:00 p.m. to 20:30 p.m.

By Daniel Sznajderman

3 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Calle de Martín de los Heros, 6
2. Calle de Isabel 'La Católica', 19
3. Calle de Martín de los Heros, 6

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Toni Martin Discos: A Music Lovers Delight

A true chocolate connoisseur will look for a specific brand instead of opting for a regular chocolate  bar; a clothing snob might find a designer boutique instead of strolling into El Corte Ingles, and a furniture aficionado will likely avoid getting their house furniture at IKEA. So when it comes to being a fan of music, it’s best that you stroll on in to  Toni Martin Discos than a large chain record store. For music lovers, critics, snobs and especially collectors Toni Martin is a haven of meticulously organized and fantastically well chosen records.

Around since 1976, it’s a store that will likely have the new Rhianna album but is unlikely to receive customers that will buy it. Rather, it´s the kind of place where you come to find a huge variety of records and artists that mainstream record stores may only have in small numbers. Stands organized by genres, bursting with discography’s from just about anybody. It´s as if an old music expert  decided to have a big yard sale of both vinyl and compact discs.

Suffice to say, in case you´ve not assumed it already, the store is particularly rich in blues, jazz and classic rock. These form the main bulk of Toni Martin, but don’t be dismayed— there is also a notable presence of pop, funk, flamenco, classical, ethnic music, Latin, metal and the like. If you are looking for something very current and mainstream, or along the lines of rap and reggaeton, you may find more variety and even lower prices at a music chain shop.

The main jewel and reason to visit; however, is the box and collector´s sets: complete, rare and beautiful enough to make you drool. We´re not talking about your typical ¨best of,” but sets whose packaging is almost as valuable as the records: ¨No Thanks: 1970´s Punk Rebellion¨ box set, the fifteen album Jack Bruce anthology, the complete Chuck Berry recordings, the Neil Young archives 1963-1972 are just a few examples. One notable item is the Jack Kerouac audio collection: five discs of all of his recorded poetry readings including commentaries by William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg, and two booklets including pictures, biographies and copies of original writing drafts.

Accompanying the music is a large selection of magazines, ranging from popular to downright obscure like publications dedicated only to jazz or metal or to music entrepreneurship. The movie selection doesn´t stray far behind with many music DVD´s to choose from, some that are documentaries but most of which are concert films. There is also a small but well picked selection of standard movies, most of which are divided as musicals, war films, classics and new releases.

If you are trying to satisfy your musical urges, expand your knowledge, or just want to find a record that doesn’t seem to be anywhere else then Toni Martin is your best bet.

Toni Martin Discos
Calle Martin de los Heros 18
Metro: Plaza España/Noviciado
91 542 50 20 / 91 541 88 75
Hours: Monday through Saturday 7:30 a.m. –  14:00 p.m.  and 17:00 p.m. – 20:00 p.m.

By Daniel Sznajderman

2 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Antonio Martin Discos
2. Calle de Martín de los Heros, 28

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Original Eye Candy: The o2 Store Madrid

o2 has enough merchandise to accessorize any room in your home: stylish salt and pepper holders and fashionable toasters for your kitchen; cool comfy pillows, psychedelic lamps and a shiny vintage turntable for the living room; funky calculators, magnets, and a red phone out of Dr. Strangelove for your desk (have to look professional of course).  More than aiming to be professional or elegant though, o2 shoots straight for the hip, trendy and plain cool. The surprising part is that instead of coming off as laughable or excessive it pretty much achieves its goal: the store is worth a stroll just to look at the ingenious models and great designs of everyday items that are on display.

Located a few meters away from the Puerta del Sol, the two floor store is bigger than it looks from the outside, and every pocket of space is filled with some product or other. The first section is dedicated almost solely to body accessories comprised of beads, jewels, stones, crystals, almost all beautiful intense colors. The back of the store is filled with household items, some that can be quite useful and others that are just decorative. One sure thing is that the hefty prices aren’t there only because of product quality, but also because the product’s design transforms it into total eye candy.Vintage cameras from the sixties (the Lubitel Universal 166 +), insane pens and key chains, laptop skins fashioned to look like an old world atlas, alarm clocks that belong in a Looney Tunes episode, plus—and brace yourself for the kitchen—all kinds of glassware, shiny martini drink shakers, animal shaped cutlery, coffee cups with wings, and cheese graters that look like part of a fashionable lady’s dress. Upstairs the show continues with thin round wall clocks—one themed to the image of a bulldog, another of Marilyn Monroe, one that looks like a flat planet earth—hippie style clothing,  colorful candles, school bags shaped like matchboxes and the huge battery shaped cylinder to dispose batteries in, duh.

As far as costs go here’s an idea of the price range: Cups, glassware and cutlery costs between 4.25 and 6.75 euros, while other accessories of the sort go much higher: salt and pepper shakers can reach up to 40 euros, an ice tray is 25 euros, cooking utensils go at around 35 euros. The cool phones and clocks easily top 100 euros. Heck, there’s even ambiance CD’s tuned to relaxing jazz, soothing Zen, erotic Elvis Presley (for real), but for 14.95 each better look for these in any normal music store.

A lunatic rampage of unnecessary accessorizing? You can make a strong case for that, but how unnecessary it has to be is up to you. If you’re not looking for something for yourself then even better—it is the perfect store to find an original and good quality gift.

o2
Calle del Carmen, 8
91 532 46 83

By Daniel Sznajderman

1 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Calle del Carmen, 8

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Shop Madrid: Caribbean Skate, Surf, Snow and Sport

The name Caribbean will most likely sound familiar to skateboarders that live and roll in Madrid. It is, after all, the oldest skating store in the city that specializes in American style sliding sports: skateboards, long boards, surfboards, snowboards, wakeboards and other forms of extreme sport that can get you hurt. Skating and surf have become increasingly popular since the stores beginnings in 1975 and with it have come numerous other skate shops, but Caribbean has kept up a good name and a wide range of evolving products (it isn’t known for its low prices though). While other skate shops may only be well outfitted with skateboarding equipment, this store sells harder to find objects like long and wake boards—along with, of course, hoards of related paraphernalia including clothing, shoes, books, hacky sacks, stickers, style accessories and the like.

Especially important when it comes to buying sports equipment or their spare parts is to have knowledgeable advice from the store, and in this department Caribbean has no problem. It is still run by its original owners, who have seen the evolution of skating and its derivatives as well as experienced the ups and downs of the business in Spain. Jose Antonio Muñoz, a part owner who is usually at the front of the store, can lecture you in skating history: the surf inspired birth of the homemade long board in California in the sixties, the skate explosion of the seventies and its subsequent downfall in the early eighties, the coming of new school skating in the mid-nineties (and with it Tony Hawk and a lot of videogames) and now, the newborn popularity of commercial long boarding. If Caribbean could be the first to sell long boards in the seventies and could survive the skating business depression of the early eighties, Muñoz says, he’s sure the store will keep its place along Columela Street for a long time.

There are over fifty different brands in store that work with different types of skating: long skate, slalom skating, downhill, street, free style and old school. The different board brands to choose from are many: Powell Peralta, Zoo York, Gravity, Loaded, Lush, Powell, Surf One, Sector 9, Katin, Pukas, RRP, Z–flex, among others. They are accompanied by spare accessories—specially a large selection of wheels—from Bones, Cadillac, Kryptonics, Carver, Bennett, Randal, Bear and more. As for shoes, caps, backpacks, hardware and other accessories there are many to choose from: Ezequiel, Vans, Spitfire, Oakley, Volcom, Independent, Globe and more. They also deliver to any national and international address.

The store also involves itself with events that fall in its specialty. They organize unofficial skating reunions in the Parque del Oeste every Sunday from 11 a.m. until about 14:30 p.m., and they were one of the sponsors of last May’s first Skating Slalom Race of Madrid.

For a detailed list of their products and prices visit the Caribbean website at here.

Caribbean
Calle Columela, 5
91 576 11 17

By Daniel Sznajderman

3 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Caribbean
2. Parque del Oeste
3. Calle de Columela, 5

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Visit the Mercado de San Miguel

If you have been in Madrid for longer than 3 days chances are you’ve visited the Mercado de San Miguel. If you haven’t been there yet, time to scold your so called Madrid-experienced friends and make your way to the Plaza de San Miguel to enjoy the many flavors, colors and smells of this historic market.  Inside it is well kept and filled with the first class foods, from the most traditional of Spain—smoked pork, olives, paella—to spectacular sushi to fresh fruits and vegetables. A lot of the food may be for your eyes only though: the market is anything but cheap. Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 22:00 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

By Daniel Sznajderman

1 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Plaza de San Miguel

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Young Designers Fair in Madrid

In the heart of Lavapies from Thursday, December 3rd, to Sunday, December 6th, is the young designers fair at  La Boca del Lobo cultural space. Here, the newest designers on the scene showcase their fresh and unique styles of accessories, clothes, shoes, and more. For more information go here.

1 places are mentioned in this post!

1. Calle de Argumosa, 11

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SHOPS IN MADRID: Ojalá!

Ojalá!

Spanish design comes to life in handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces, now available to fashion lovers through a trendy new boutique in central Madrid. Ojalá! opened its doors at the end of July, and has been booming with business ever since. The stylish clothing store holds a colorful array of women’s garments by Paloma del Pozo, a Spanish designer who originally worked the runway before deciding to open her own shop—now offering the public admirably imaginative outfits.

Pozo draws her fashion inspiration from the theatrical and the whimsical, as well as from Oriental influences such as Russian and Asian designs. The result: truly unique fashion options that will make any woman stand out in a crowd. Take for instance an olive green coat, inspired by the stage, with high breast buttons and sunshine yellow embroidery that dances around the collar and the sleeves (250 euros). Or a close cut, cardinal red blazer featuring oversized buttons, navy embroidered details, and flared out coattails in the back (130 euros).  Asian influence is seen in knee-length, deep violet coat, with an A-frame shape and flared sleeves (250 euros). Pozo has also taken inspiration from childish freedom, seen in a line of black, sleeveless jumpers (355 euros each). Each dress is belted at the waste, and shows off a flashy band of colored fabric down the front. Shades range from dusty rose to hot pink; a sunset of oranges and yellows; multi-hued bands of gold, tangerine, olive, and violet; or dusky shades of silver, navy, and blue. No two jumpers are alike. Prices at Ojalá! can get a bit high, but cost comes with quality, as each piece is completely original in design and handmade from the best materials. Smaller items, such as shirts and skirts, run in the 30 to 70 euro price range.

Style not only applies to the dashing clothing at Ojalá!, but also extends to the chic boutique itself. The theatrical inspiration is reflected with black painted floors and walls, casually brushed over with strokes of silver, grey, and white. Bright accessories add pops of color to the scene—like tangerine rugs and low hanging, deep purple lamps. Two ornate silver mirrors allow clients to admire the garments, while photographs of the clothing on the runway inspire fashionable combinations. Run by Pozo and her assistant, shoppers are sure to receive personal attention during a shopping experience that is intimate, and also exhilarating—featuring truly unique and imaginative pieces that will not be found at any other store in the city.

PRICES:
30-355 euros

Address: Calle de las Huertas, 5
Neighborhood: Anton Martin
Metro: Anton Martin, Tirso de Molina, Sol
Telephone: 914 296 595

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 12 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

By Jane Caffrey

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