CITYist

Design collective JNBY, a dozen Chinese women with a well-established business in Asia and Russia, takes on the stateside market today with the opening of its first American retail outpost. A butter-cream yellow storefront on Greene Street, the shop has standard Soho retail elements: brick walls, empty space and garments individually bungee-corded and hung by hooks (though watch for the helicopter-inspired dressing room slated to land in the store next month).

Generally pulling from art, architecture and music, the team behind JNBY sources rotating inspiration for its line instead of one cohesive design concept. This season their rock ‘n’ roll numbers—jet black blazers and strips of leather pieced together on the sides—are courtesy of Patti Smith. A few pieces in cobalt blue and primary red (the only departure from an otherwise toned-down palate of sandy tans and foggy morning greys) was taken from German print artist Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein, one of Warhol’s Factory rats.

JNBY stands for Just Naturally Be Yourself, and that seems easy to do with the haphazard take-as-you-please line, where preppy polos and airline hostess frocks are interspersed with sculpted, structural dresses and laminated shorts. Slouchy tops and stretch knit bottoms translate easily from Shanghai sidewalks to Brooklyn byways—but the denim strikes off-key with clumsy paper-bag waists. Disregarding the jeans, it’s the sort of store where a hipsterette could bring her conservative Midwestern mother and both would walk out bag-in-hand.