The Prada Store on Prince Street and Broadway, designed by Rem Koolhaas, is a combination of an ultra-modern interior housed in a brooding late-Victorian exterior. We’ve bookmatched the steep in/out and up/down entrance. An extravagant $40 million was spent on a 23,000-square foot space in a building worth less than half of that. The two floors are connected with a half-pipe wooden curve made of exotic zebrawood.

Formerly a branch of the Guggenheim Museum, it is now a museum/gallery of exquisite products available to those who have the means to indulge…pairs of shoes on each stair step draw your attention and keep you moving on to the next. Many people pass through simply to experience the fabulousness inherent in just being there. In January, a terrible fire in the building wiped out the new collection, but they seem to have recuperated without pausing. See this link for an in depth article.

Here’s Girl Props on Prince Street, close to West Broadway, a major thoroughfare downtown and shopping mecca in SoHo. Here, shown during a short lull in traffic, is an accessory supply store filled with staples for those of us who need that last-minute feather boa or rhinestone tiara or pair of velvet gloves or fishnet hose, to help us be properly attired for whatever occasion life offers us which we suspect may require zebra stripes or hot pink…we cannot live by bread alone…or even at all, considering the constant dieting that goes on in NYC…

Update: Girl Props has since closed.