PhabLife The Men's Guide to Style, Fashion, Grooming, Pop Culture, Entertainment, Travel and Nightlife.

Fine form tailoring has a new home on Long Island’s North Shore in the form of Ermenegildo Zegna, which last week unveiled its latest store at the Americana Manhasset as it celebrates its centennial anniversary this year.

Designed by architects Gianmaria and Roberto Beretta of Studio Beretta in Milan, this marks the Italian, family-run brand’s 15th U.S. location. Boasting 2,100 square feet of luxury retail selling space, the store’s beautifully crafted design and utilization of raw materials accent the timeless style and sophisticated elegance that is the Ermenegildo Zegna heritage (the brand was conceived in 1910 in Trivero, in the Biella Alps).

Upon arrival clients are greeted with a video wall featuring the seasonal Milan runway collections. Natural woods and stones are harmoniously combined to create a masculine retail environment, in the vision of a private gentleman’s club.

The Manhasset store carries the full range of the Ermenegildo Zegna and Zegna Sport collections, as well as their complementing accessories lines. The store also offers the exclusive Su Misura (made-to-measure) service along with ceremonial and formal attire.

Visit Ermenegildo Zegna at Americana Manhasset (click here).

The team that brought you GYM Sports Bar in Chelsea now proudly announce the opening of ROCKBAR in the West Village.

The new bar is located on Christopher Street near the West Side Highway and offers a whole new look, energy and staff.

ROCKBAR will be home to a sexy, diverse crowd that loves rock & roll and cutting-edge alternative music.

ROCKBAR
185 Christopher Street at West Side Highway.

Click here for ROCKBAR website.

Tiffany & Co., London

Tiffany & Co., The luxury US jeweler, said on Friday that demand was starting to improve for its offerings, in spite of falling profits, signalling renewed appetite from US consumers for discretionary items such as diamonds and necklaces.

Luxury retailers have been pummelled by the recession, with shoppers focused on necessities. But Tiffany & Co. has held its prices steady while slashing costs and the company says it is beginning to see the benefits.

“It appears the tide may be slowly turning in our favour,” Mark Aaron, vice president of investor relations, said in a conference call with analysts.

“Tiffany’s brand management has been excellent during the slowdown,” said David Schick, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “They’ve been through the Great Depression, so they have a great heritage.”

Tiffany & Co., Madrid

Sales in the US have been hit the hardest, plunging by 25 percent, while those in Europe and Asia were off by just 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

“While economic and retail conditions remain challenging, we were encouraged to see many stores achieving either smaller year-over-year rates of sales declines or modest sales growth compared with the past two quarters,” Michael Kowalski, Tiffany’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Within the US, sales in the New York area have suffered from widespread job cuts in the financial sector. Sales were off by 30 per cent in the nine store New York region and at the flagship store in Manhattan. Jewelry priced above $50,000 has been the hardest to sell in the last year, while items with more “accessible” prices have seen smaller declines in sales, the company said.

Mr Kowalski noted that Tiffany is working to trim costs in the face of weaker consumer demand, but that it would continue opening stores in hopes of capturing a greater share of the market while other luxury retailers struggle. The New York-based company operates 211 stores across the world and said it would expand by a modest 6 per cent this year.

Tiffany & Co. website click here.

Have you ever flown Austrian Airlines? We haven’t because we don’t often think of Vienna has the gateway for our European vacations. And usually, we’re frantically trying to make the most of our miles accumulated on domestic airlines like American and Continental.

But in an effort to persuade people like us, Austrian Airlines has unveiled its Smart Car “Airplanes” to create awareness about their business class services, calling it the “smart ride to Europe.”

The Smart Car “Airplanes” will be cruising throughout New York and Washington, D.C. for the next month (first NYC; then after Labor Day, DC.) As an added bonus the cars will be handing out free bottles of cold water to folks passing by.

The cars do look adorable, but in all fairness, Delta pioneered this idea back in spring. A tiny car makes us think of tiny seats. And do the cars have the in-flight entertainment system in them? All we can gather from this stunt is that you might get bottled water in-flight.

Economy flights to Vienna from JFK average about $500 each way. Business class starts at $1,764 each way. Perhaps discounting that biz class ticket could be a better way to create awareness.