In the ’90s, Liquid Sky on Lafayette Street was where the ravers shopped and schmoozed, and across the street, X-Girl, X-Large, and Supreme were where you’d find the skater kids. In that same tradition of Soho shops-that-are-more-than-shops is VFiles (12 Mercer Street), a loose offshoot of V magazine (its founder, Julie Anne Quay, is an alum of the downtown fashion fiefdom) with a 50,000-member social-media network.* On any given day you’ll find millennials mixing high fashion with Tumblr memes and ironic sportswear (think $300 SpongeBob visors by Moschino paired with SLIMANE baseball jerseys), Fuct-T-shirt-clad teens milling about, part-time models killing time between appointments, and members of VFiles’ extended “family” (stylists, musicians, photographers) who are passing through Soho. In mid-July, Yung Lean, an 18-year-old Swedish rapper, performed at the store’s second anniversary. Here’s who showed up.
* This article has been corrected to show that Julie Anne Quay is the sole founder of VFiles.
*This article appears in the July 28, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.