Totokaelo (TOH-toh-KYE-yo, a corruption of the Latin, meaning, more or less, “the sky’s the limit”), all 8,400 square feet of it, is preparing to open its doors on Crosby Street.
Its founder and chief executive, Jill Wenger, is making her final preparations in a Yohji Yamamoto tunic and skirt and black velvet Margiela boots with Margiela’s famously bovine cloven toe. (This space was once the home and studio of the sculptor Arturo Di Modica, who created Wall Street’s bronze bull here, so it is no stranger to hooves.)
Mannequins in sutured sweater-dresses and coats with wig-length hair are ready; painted panels with portraits of designers like Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake and Dries Van Noten covered in googly eyes are waiting to be installed.
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With five floors in SoHo, Totokaelo’s ambitions (sky’s the limit!) are large, and Manhattan retail is competitive. But already, Totokaelo is a $17 million business that, until this year, Ms. Wenger was directing out of a less-heralded fashion mecca: Seattle.
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Ms. Wenger, 38, founded her first store, Impulse, in Seattle in 2003 with a $20,000 loan from her grandparents. She sold local designers’ clothes by consignment until demand outstripped what they could supply.
“At first I learned how to sell clothes,” she said, “then I had to learn how to style. Then I had to learn about fashion, because I started selling clothes quicker than the people could sew them. We are a true scrappy start-up.”
The first Totokaelo opened in 2008. Ms. Wenger eventually picked up the top tier of Japanese and European designers, including Yohji Yamamoto (a favorite), Issey Miyake, Rick Owens and Maison Margiela. Even if it sometimes perplexed Seattle — “Totokaelo’s wares sometimes bring to mind a ‘Sprockets’ skit on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” as an admiring profile in The Seattle Times put it last year — it flourished, not least because of Ms. Wenger’s emphasis on online sales. In recent years, sales from its website have accounted for 60 percent of its business.
The Seattle store continues, but the emphasis is now on New York, where Ms. Wenger moved last fall. The New York space is at once airy and esoteric. Light streams in from a skylight, and the top floors overlook one another around a central atrium; rooms are decorated like Bohemian apartments, with vintage rugs, potted succulents and ceramic jugs (the result of eBay searches for Asian and prehistoric pottery, Ms. Wenger said). Clothes are arranged, in part, by shade: There is the “designer color” room, a white room, a black room.
Photo
Jill Wenger, top, is the chief executive of Totokaelo. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times
“I’ve never had a store where I’ve had enough space to do all black without it feeling heavy,” she said. “But here it totally works. It does not scare me, and it does not feel dark and gothy. It totally feels bright. I love that. I love that you can wear dark colors and not be a dark person.”
The store will open Saturday flush with merchandise (besides the labels above, Ms. Wenger stocks newer ones like the Row and Vetements; a basement level is dedicated to men’s wear). A new Totokaelo collection, inspired by “’90s Yohji, Comme, Jil Sander” and more moderately priced than some of Ms. Wenger’s other stock ($450 trousers instead of $1,000 and higher ones by Mr. Yamamoto), will soon round out the offerings.
“I can’t find the stuff I loved in the market — honestly, three years ago, I could,” Ms. Wenger said. “Now the world’s going sexier. I’m like, where do I get those giant overalls?”
Sexy, traditionally defined, is not Totokaelo.
“I always say our client’s a black sheep,” Ms. Wenger said. “Our client comes to us because they want clothes they can put on with sneakers and a giant cardigan or blazer and tromp around and do life in.”
She laughed and summed up the look: “I just threw this on, and it was probably in a pile on the floor next to my bed.”
