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 Whenever you find yourself in Park Slope and don’t want to go all the way into the city to buy some nice shoes, check out Premium Goods (formerly from Fort Green), on fifth avenue. Premium Goods, and its sister, next door, Wndrlnd, are both owned by Clarence Nathan, the big deal designer of urban footwear. While Premium Goods caters to both sexes, Wndrlnd is a boutique just for the ladies. Located right next door, and replacing a beauty-supply boutique, Wndrlnd is stocked with footwear from Nike, Vans and Keds. But this is not a place just for the feet. Here, in the glowing light of purple neon, you can also find a great assortment of clothing and accessories, like Hells Bells tees, A Peace Treaty scarves, Essie polishes and separates from designer Olga Kapustina.
Nathan Clarence has had Brooklyn hooked on kicks since 2003, and his shop earned the reputation of the best boutique in Brooklyn, as Nice Kicks, a sneaker website, reported earlier this year. Nathan started to design T-shirts while in his second year of public-health grad school at Columbia University, and after graduation he started to distribute them to stores around the world. In 2002 he opened Premium Goods in Fort Green, selling his own tees, as well as street wear from other small or local apparel vendors. In 2005 he moved the store to Fifth Avenue, and here he brought the latest, limited edition styles of sneakers (do yourself a favor and check out the Umbros, created by hot British designer Kim Jones). The shoes at Premium Goods come in unusual colors and materials-Adidas in a pastel rainbow, Nike high tops in Harris tweed or paisley-and cost, for most part, fairly modest prices (a pair of dunk low cl Jordan pack, in mint condition, could cost you only $90). Rare pairs, which run into the thousands, are kept in the store’s glass display.
Premium Goods offers all you could want in a store. A special apparel treat (if you are going to spend the money, at least spend it here. You’ll walk away with something worth it, and in today’s economy, you sure deserve and want that!), great clothing (especially their own brand which offers jackets and T-shirts –they just released some Brooklyn tees for the ladies, and they come in four different colors), even hats! The Premium Goods New Era Polka Dot Hats are available now and they are pretty rare. Only 81 pieces of the black fitted, and 64 of the white ones were released. The hats feature a colorful polka dot design with the Premium Goods logo on the back panel of the hat, and they are sold only at Premium Goods shops.
In august 2008 owner Clarence Nathan was a little under fire from local newspapers, when they run stories about sneaker aficionados who waited in front of Premium Goods (for a combined 576 hours) for the Atomic Zoom Kobe 1 and walked away empty handed. The shoe was released on August 8 in honor of the Beijing Olympics and Team USA’s star player, Kobe Bryant. Clarence Nathan designed the shoe himself, choosing colors, emblems and other design elements that were inspired by emotions mentioned in Bryant’s diary. The rare, eye-catching, white, purple, and gray sneaker features the infinity symbol (a rotated version of Bryant’s number 8 from his uniform), a tribute to Einstein’s famous energy equation, E=MC2, and also the image of an atom with Bryant’s personal “black mamba” logo instead of the nucleus.
There were only 16 pairs of these shoes made- eight sold in Brooklyn and eight sold in Huston, and the price to own a pair was a measly $440! Half dozen teens camped outside Premium Goods for 3 days, sleeping on folding chairs, and relying on relatives for food. In the end the shoes were sold by raffle, and entrants needed to buy something in the store before they could participate.
Yes, Nathan is a sneaker savant. Before his new design, he got a nifty little red, green and black shoe for Fila under his belt, a pastel design for Adidas, and a Harris Tweed one for Nike. By not pursuing his public health degree he did a huge favor to the vast, creative, incredible world of sneaker designing.
Premium Goods is just a tiny spot kind of place, but they have good stuff here, and after your first visit this will be one of your favorite haunts. They are open Mon-Thu noon-7pm, Fri.-Sat. noon-8pm, and Sun noon-6pm. Come to Premium Goods to see what’s new and hot in the sneaker universe!
Premium Goods
347 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215
718 369 7477
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