Jil Sander Boutique and Derek Lam Boutique,New York City

The recession devastating retail in most places is nowhere to be found in a recently shabby area of New York's SoHo, just north of Chinatown. Among a handful of new boutiques, galleries and at least one hot new restaurant are two recently opened shops that demonstrate the emerging interconnections between fashion and architectural design. Jayne Merkel explains that Jil Sander creative director Raf Simons, who is now designing the Jil Sander line, also designed the store that houses it and, a few doors away, the much lauded new designer Derek Lam selected one of his first customers, Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA, to design his first retail store. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.