Ever since this summer, venture capitalist and co-founder of Tory Burch, the company–and ex-husband of Tory Burch, the person–Chris Burch has been teasing us around town with his very mysterious and somewhat contradictorily self-described affordable-luxury lifestyle brand C. Wonder. The mystery is about to end since the inaugural C. Wonder flagship is finally throwing open its chartreuse colored, C-logo-ed doors to the public this weekend; we dropped by for a a sneak peek led by Mr. Burch and his team on Tuesday morning.

“It’s pretty critical for us that we give luxury and [an] extraordinary environment at a price point that a lot of Americans can afford,” Burch said clad in a pinstriped suit and velvet monogrammed slip-ons (sans socks, naturally).

The brightly-lit, whimsically designed store sells pretty much everything and anything you can think of. There are cable knits, trench coats, striped button downs, rainboots, handbags, costume jewelry, bikes (with bright pink helmets to match), Vespa-like scooters, pillows, picture frames, dishware, clocks, even a freakin’ mini-cupcake maker ($39, if you’re wondering). The price points are, as promised, affordable. While it seemed like everything we picked up was $78–a soft crew-neck sweater, color-block zipped tote, python-embossed ballet flats, and dark-washed boot-cut jeans–the prices ran the gamut from $24 for stackable bangles to $245 (for the bike) and up.

But it’s not just the pretty affordable and ridiculously vast (possibly too vast) inventory that is interesting about the store.

Read more →