series in which we sift through a fashion lover’s favorite store. For this edition, we shop with Ziwe at the newly opened Susan Alexandra store at 33 Orchard Street.loves creations by Susan Korn—better known by her label name of Susan Alexandra—and so do I. The designer’s beaded bags are like a wearable candyland for stylish downtown babes. Think of her as the Judith Leiber of today, creating shiny and saucy treats for ladies who frequent the Lower East Side.
And there’s no better person to experience Korn’s store first than Ziwe. Her humor and quick wit, which first reached a wider audience on her Instagram live shows during the pandemic, led to Ziwe hosting her very own late-night variety show, produced by A24 and Showtime. Ziwe is hilarious, a bucketful of wholesome funny one-liners, but she has bite.
Ziwe takes note of the floor tiles, which come in mustard yellow, peach, and steel blue. In fact, everything is tiled, with stained glass around the fountain bed and even the original tin ceiling repainted in a rich salmon color. The tiles were particularly important for Korn, here positioned to mirror her bags, which are designed on a grid. Also, she believes they can easily become a tabula rasa if need be. “You can wipe them clean and you can start over,” she says. “It’s good symbolism.
When Ziwe and I peruse, we ooh and aah at everything. It’s a cornucopia of flamboyant fun. “Everything is not only a functional bag, but it’s like a toy—it’s an art piece,” says Ziwe. “I have this purse [a Hello Kitty bag] in the back of my Zoom meetings.” I think about Ziwe’s point about Korn’s bags. What if someone had a Chanel purse as background candy? Honestly, that feels gauche. Try-hard. Cringe.
Ziwe doesn’t opt for the scenic purse, but instead ends up grabbing a beaded red bag in the shape of a massive bow, lending a delicious pop of contrast to her black puffer coat. She also snags one of the micro-beaded purses in a cow print and a matching headband. “This would be something I interview Fran Lebowitz in,” Ziwe adds. And who knows? She may end up doing just that, with the second season of her show being commissioned to launch early next year.