Hip Spirit : Verner Boutique

Downtown Tel Aviv started a “mutation” few years ago, bringing a brand new crowd of young stylish people in the south of the metropole, and thereby allowing the emergence of creative spaces such as art galleries, design stores and fashion boutiques. Few steps away from the very trendy Florentin neighborhood, in the quiet Alfasi street, Verner Boutique opened its doors in 2009 for the pleasure of the Telavivim. Verner offers a high selection of contemporary fashion by established designers but equally so presents emerging talents. What is striking me with the Boutique is even if it’s a multi-brands store, Verner has its very own signature : innovative, sophisticated, graphic contemporary silhouette. There is also something pure and edgy in the pieces and items that its team selected, giving the Verner customers the opportunity to be as versatile as they want. It’s sounds cliché to say that Verner is more than a shop but it is, it gives you a real shopping experience and the possibility to compose different stylish looks in a very fashion forward atmosphere.

To learn more about this essential Boutique, its owner Shira Dolinger had the kindness to answer few of my questions :

Can you describe the “spirit” of Verner in few words?

Verner is a contemporary cutting edge fashion boutique which Quality, innovation and creativity guides us to keep on going.

What do you think about the israeli fashion scene?

Israeli Fashion scene has developed much in the past few years. we are now more exposed to young and innovative designers and thanks to the internet and all social media, we are better to know what’s happening outside Israel, fashion wise, and are more able to adopt trends and style.

Verner represents a perfect balance between fashion, design and lifestyle. Are you seeing yourself as what we call nowadays a concept store, a type of store that offer a theme, a concept or a universe? The naming “concept store” is really a trend in Europe and so far I didn’t see much of these in Tel Aviv which was quiet surprising. Do you think there is a public in Israeli for contemporary high quality fashion?

Verner is definitely a Concept store. through the visuality, vibe, location and image of the boutique we make it “easier” to the public to understand and connect to the contemporary high quality fashion. The “total package” Intensifies the shopping experience and work corresponding to our selection. When we see a collection we analyze it considering factors such as the climat delivery dates, fabrics content and weight, retail prices to a very certain point in which we make sure it’ll fit to our customers in Israel.

Verner mixes establish designers with newbies, why is it important for you to promote young talents?

All big talents started small.. We believe that giving someone that we consider promising and worthy, a stage to show and sell his collection is what contemporary fashion all about.

Verner offer a cosmopolite range of designers, as I was born and raised in Belgium and as I know you are offering some pieces of my Belgian fellow Martin Margiela, who is most definitely a must in the fashion world, I need to ask how your clientele is receiving such a nonconsensual and eccentric designer ? Does Verner like to promote foreign designers?

Martin Margiela is very established and his name brings the customers to the store. My customers are fashion educated enough to know the designer and to appreciate it. I try to focus on the garments I believe will work the best with the Israeli women body type which tends to be curvier then the typical “Margiela” body type. I think that the HM collaboration was also very helpful in terms of rising the brand awareness of the designer. To your other question, I’m obsessed with promoting everything that is good:)

Verner is a place to go, to see, to be. What Verner provides/offers that no other place in Tel Aviv does?

I think that we really take risks and being on top of what’s going on in the fashion industry worldwide. We care to bring the collections that excite and motivate the industry before they were to be proved “commercial”. I always feel like we don’t just sell, we provide and share. We share our love, style and interests. We do it through music, magazines, taste and what we offer to our customers as a souvenir is the garment wrapped nicely in a Verner bag:)

How would you described the sense of fashion of the Telavivim?

Wow.. Tel Avivim are definitely more forward and fashionable than people in all other cities in Israel. But still… the hot weather sometimes may be used as an excuse to make some really bad decisions… I would definitely use BOLD to describe it. There is a growing group of people with a great fashion sense which I’ll describe as clean and sophisticated.

The Blog will be about the places and the people that I think are making Tel Aviv such an interesting, arty and trendy city and Verner is definitely one of them. Could you recommend us some places or spots that your particularly like in Tel Aviv?

Chelouche Gallery for the Art and Hotel Montefiore for the food and vibe.

Here is a selection of pieces and looks that I liked all featuring by the Oh So Lovely Leslie, I need to admit that I had a total crush for the Kenzo prints and the Alexander Wang Rocco Latte bag.