"As far as my clients are concerned, the husbands almost always take the lead," said Bill Sofield, who designs Gucci's sleek stores but whose residential work is cozier and more colorful.
Are you appalled by seeing the main drag of Ho Chi Minh City lined with sleek stores selling ultra-luxury goods from decadent Europe?
But don't expect many retro references at her sleek little store.
WHERE TO SHOP The best place to buy silk is La Tessitura (Viale Roosevelt, 2/A, Como; 39-031-321-666, www.mantero.concepthe store cofcept store of Mantero, the famed silk manufacturer.
AFTER an exasperating search in New York for a set of dining chairs for a Sunday night dinner party at his Riverside Drive apartment, Augustus Butera was exhilarated when he found the perfect chair at Room -- a sleek new store in Miami.
With five sleek flagship stores in Cotonou, Benin; Lomé, Togo; Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Lagos, Nigeria; and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr. Ouwendijk now has his sights on further expansion.
But Rachel Kaufman, 43, a musician, worried that a development juggernaut had replaced colorful mom-and-pop shops with sleek chain stores.
Additional inspiration has also come from the uber-sleek Apple stores.
Melissa Bushell, left, who has been serving her bite-size cupcakes from the window of a SoHo coffee shop, has opened her own sleek little glass store.
She imagined that the sleek four-story store, at Seventieth and Madison, with its pale-green walls, glass elevator, and pinkish-beige carpet, was a "castle of magic".
