Window Shopping

Like Clockwork: Milk Bar

By Wes Flexner

WILL SHILLING PHOTO

At the grand opening of Milk Bar during December's Gallery Hop, they weren't serving Moloko, as in the milk bar visited by Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange, but plenty of alcohol was provided.

At one point there were approximately 150 exquisitely dressed people watching Stanley Kubrick's movie, based on Anthony Burgess' dystopian novel, while listening to A Tribe Called Quest.

The next day, I met up at the shop with two of its three co-owners: OSU optometry student Kani Brown, who peddled jeans out of the back of his car before getting a storefront, and Get Right party promoter Kareem Jackson.

Brown explained the correlation between their shop, hip-hop fashion and A Clockwork Orange like this: "In the movie, the milk bar would be the first thing they would do before going out, before they had 'fun,' or their idea of fun—the medium or the place you go to get dressed up or fly before you go out. The style here is for going out."

And to them, looking your best doesn't include disposable trends associated with street wear.

"We don't have anything in the store that's gonna be a like a fad," Brown said. "If you're spending money on a piece of clothing, you want it to last. You want to wear it for more than two days."

WILL SHILLING PHOTO

For the Milk Bar droogies, this means carrying international and independent contempory imprints in limited quantities, to avoid everyone rocking the same gear.

Jackson and Brown are pushing some interesting trademarks and styles, including flannels and tees by Insight 51. Vandals with iPods may be interested in the hand-numbered, artist-stitched and designed Distilled jackets, which look pretty fancy but have special pockets for spray-paint cans and headphones.

The blue collar-turned-bourgeois might gravitate to Dunderdon's Euro-cut work wear. People that value mobility and comfort may lean toward skate fit jeans by L.A.'s Corpus Denim.

If you want a "green jean," then hand-sewn items from Good Society might be your thing. For the ladies, they have items from Australian company Milk and Honey, a Nicole Richie favorite, and a detail-driven line from Lifetime Collective. The store also sells hats and accessories.

The goal for the store is to put Columbus on the same fashion-forward schedule as major cities around the world. "A lot of people say Columbus isn't ready for us," Jackson said. "I think it's a lie. A lot of people think they have to travel to New York to shop. It is just time for something else to happen."

December 13, 2007

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