When gossip began to spread that beloved men’s shop Odin was planning to open a sister store for girls right next door, it was easy to foresee racks upon racks of tomboyish clothes. Common Projects sneakers in ladies’ sizes, perhaps, and an ace selection of button-downs and hoodies. All the stuff, in other words, that women have been sniffing out at Odin for the past few years. Well, think again. The merch at Pas de Deux, as Odin’s women’s shop has come to be known, is nothing if not feminine. “That’s why we didn’t call the store Odin,” explains founder Eddy Chai. “We really wanted to do something different, and not confuse people into thinking it’d be all the same stuff that we carry in our men’s stores.” Not that Pas de Deux doesn’t reflect the Odin sensibility—the store’s stock is likewise a tight edit of downtowner must-haves; in this case, Alexander Wang knits and leather, Repetto shoes, and dresses by the likes of Karen Walker, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Lover. As Chai notes, the strategy is to give local lasses a closet quick fix. “We’re not trying to be avant-garde. Girls wander into Odin all the time, and I see what they wear. Really, we’re just filling a void in the neighborhood.” Chai is undoubtedly on to something: Before the store had even opened, shoppers were already swarming its doors. “See,” Chai said, watching as a half dozen or so women crowded into Pas de Deux’s petite space. “All foot traffic.”
—Maya Singer
Photo: Courtesy of Pas de Deux
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—Maya Singer
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Following Paris’ couture week earlier this month, there was a general wringing of hands: Whither couture? With a reduced show schedule, Givenchy moving from the runway to an appointment-only salon, and critics like Cathy Horyn decreeing that “Couture is slipping off people’s radars faster than a U.F.O.,” it’s enough to send métier seamstresses running to update their résumés.What to do? Adapt. That’s what Worth and Paquin, two of couture’s most storied houses, are doing, with fall entries into ready-to-wear—with their traditions, the designers insist, firmly in hand.For couture, Worth designer Giovanni Bedin showed corseted, “shell-like” redingote coat-dresses overlaid in gold lace and jewels or lavish flora—precursors, as it turns out, to the return of the line (which is known as Courtworth in the U.S.) to ready-to-wear. “We’ll be keeping the ideas, fabrics, and shapes, but expanding them to ready-to-wear,” Bedin noted. The lavish Elizabeth I-inspired dresses are indicative of his direction, a pastiche of historical references but “with more modern details.” (The dresses previewed left and below are from Worth’s Fall ‘10 RTW collection.) The launch coincides with a trip into house fragrance archives, too: An updated version of the 1932 scent Je Reviens will be unveiled at Harrods’ Perfume Diaries exhibition in August.Unlike Worth, which has continued through recent years, the house of Paquin has been shuttered for half a century. But now under the designer and perfumer Libertin Louison, the label is preparing to reenter the market, first with fragrance (updated versions of two 1939 scents, Ever After and 9×9) and then fashion. “Jeanne Paquin was a true avant-garde designer,” says Louison. “She was the first to organize shows in unusual places, like a race track, and the first designer to travel to New York to show her wares. She knew what she wanted, and a century ago—before Chanel—she succeeded as a businesswoman in a man’s world.” He’ll channel the founder’s spirit with “simple, pure clothes with close attention to detail.” (An exclusive sketch of one of his designs for the revived label is below.)“The idea is to do capsule collections in limited runs, with some one-offs and small series of ten and in any case no more than 100, but with a modern and accessible ‘couture’ approach,” Louison continued. “Now is not the time for jackets that cost €3,000 euros, even if it’s a nice piece of work.” It’s also time for something lighter. “Paquin is chic and airy, she is a femme fraîche. I am not returning to the dark, slightly rock-depressive stuff I was known for before.”
Louison’s design sketch for Paquin.
More from Worth’s Fall ‘10 ready-to-wear collection.
Who knows if it’s the overtly sexy nature of the Alexander Wang embroidered mini dress, the influence of Alice Dellal and Amber Rose, or the way it looked on the runway model, but this Alexander Wang dress sold out within minutes of being added to Net-A-Porter’s international site this morning.
The caliber 240 Q movement is a masterpiece of technology crafted in its entirety in the manufacture’s ateliers for complicated watches. Composed of 275 individual parts it is only 3.88 high 
