Designer playground

If you try and ask the most stylish people to reveal where they score their fab finds, they’ll most likely be reluctant to answer, or else will be half-truthful with their reply. Best-dressed list toppers each have their own secret, one that usually involves up-and-coming designers, hard-to-reach suppliers and off-the-mall-route stores.

Sometimes though, these secrets are too good not to share, and will eventually find their way into the realm of public knowledge. Cosmopark, the cute, newly-opened little store tucked away amidst the Greenhills fray, is one of those fashion insider secrets that is slowly invading the mainstream consciousness, possibly to the chagrin of those style-philes who each thought they were Columbus, for “discovering it first.”

The boutique is a playground of finds from some of America’s biggest fashion labels. The store’s selling point: each item is tagged with prices that will set your heartbeat racing, particularly more than half of what they’re originally sold for in mainstream departments stores and retailers. Before you ask what the catch is — already thinking of those designer “overruns” that have plagued every bazaar in the metro — Reyginald Maniquis, marketing consultant for Cosmopark, quickly says, “We actually sell overstocks, not overruns.”

The retail newbie is in partnership with US-based company, J&P Sales Clothing Company, which specializes in distribution of merchandise from major department stores’ overstock, store closeouts and direct buys. Highest quality is assured and pieces, in fact, are still sold with the US store tags still attached.

Cosmopark offers everything to assuage your designer requirements from head to toe: jeans, footwear, eyewear, bags, tops and dresses. Though popular American designer labels such as Seven for Mankind, Paul Frank, Steve Madden, BCBG, L.E.I., Free People and Quicksilver are sure to sell and attract the crowd, it is Cosmopark’s assortment of cult brands that makes this store a real treasure trove. Here, real followers of fashion can find quirky bags from Gwen Stefani’s Japanese pop label Harajuku Lovers, Apple Bottom jeans by hip-hop icon Nelly, casual cool Kathy Van Zeeland totes, and Yanuk jeans (those LA-made denim pairs loved by Jessica Simpson, Beyonce Knowles and Cameron Diaz), all at indecently affordable prices.

Sizes are broken and numbers are limited, and the store can’t assure re-orders so decisive purchases are necessary. Given the quick turnover of items in the store, it is suggested that you already buy if something catches your fancy. The big-name designer brands go fast, as well as the jeans and bags. In fact, the store already has amassed a regular clientele, despite having only opened two and a half months ago. With everything in the store always 70 percent off, it’s not really surprising.

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Cosmopark is located at  Unit 70 2/F Shoppesville Arcade, Greenhills Shopping Center, San Juan.

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