Wrapping culture in new clothes

Second-generation owners refashion store to capture styles of crossover street scene

When Mayan Tamang was growing up in the late 1980s and early '90s, he spent a lot of time in Central Square with a crew of B-boys: kids who, just like him, would break-dance on the street for money and make hip-hop music for fun.

Back then Tamang and his friends weren't the only subculture populating Central Square's stretch of Massachusetts Avenue. There were punks, goths, computer heads, skateboarders, and preppies, who were all recognizable, Tamang said, by the clothes they wore, where they shopped, and the music they preferred.

It was where "all the different kinds of people came," said Tamang, now 27. "Everybody had their own place to hang out and you didn't see them mix at all."

Central Square is still regarded by many as the center of Boston area street culture. But today, the trappings that once separated an MIT student from, say, a B-boy are harder to pin down. Thanks to a confluence of rap and metal crossover bands, media that markets to punks and preppies alike, and the ubiquitous appeal of digital gadgetry, street culture is unifying.

"You can't really judge who is who anymore," Tamang said.

It's a phenomenon that brothers Morris and Joseph Naggar, second-generation retailers in Cambridge, have picked up on and one they're applying to the Attic, a boutique they opened this year on Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square. The store inhabits the same space where for 30 years they and their father, Max Naggar, operated Manhattan Clothing, an urban apparel shop. Mary Naggar, Max's wife, ran a women's clothing store, Coquette Boutique, for a decade, also in Central Square. And in the '80s and '90s, the family maintained a 99-cent store there, called Maxi's.

Suffice to say, the Naggar brothers have spent a lot of years observing the changes in Central Square street culture and its fashions, and have adjusted their store's inventory accordingly.

But the most recent evolutions in style were so great, Morris Naggar said, that the family decided to close Manhattan Clothing last year. They kept a second location of the store open, in Boston's Downtown Crossing, but they spent nearly a year renovating the Cambridge space to reflect the current Central Square crowd "There are hipsters, computer heads, hip-hop heads, and there's a style that's crossing over all sections. We wanted to have a product that spoke to that," he said.

The result is a 2,500-square-foot space that looks more like a posh New York City loft than a place to buy street-wear. Local artists' work, including paintings, sculptures, skateboards, and collages, decorate the walls of the store, and all are for sale.

As for the clothes, the inventory includes items, Morris Naggar said, that can't be purchased anywhere else in the Boston area.

"That's what the new style demands," he said.

If the goods at the Attic are true indicators, here's what that style looks like: colorful, limited-edition Nike high-tops that cost as much as $400 a pair, jeans that range from $58 to $300, and anime-inspired T-shirt designs for $30. Overall, the inventory is pricier than what the Naggars used to carry at Manhattan Clothing. The store's manager, Abdul "Brooklyn" Dawson, said his customers are willing to spend more on clothes because it guarantees them a distinctive wardrobe; what they buy at the Attic can't be found at a mall, he says.

Dawson added that Central Square is the best place in the Boston area to capture and promote the converging look of youth culture.

"There is a lot going on here. You've got your artists, your eccentric drunks on the sidewalk, MIT students, the Dance Complex across the street," he said. "It's created a very accepting environment. This is what Central Square is about, all this difference, but we're all still maintaining our own cool."

For special events, Dawson arranges for music. On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Attic had a "sneaker release party" and DJ Neebor, a.k.a. Robbin Clemente, was spinning. The bass lines from Michael Jackson (circa "Off the Wall"), Digable Planets, and Jay-Z carried as far as the sidewalk.

Inside the store, a group of young men with baseball caps, oversized T-shirts, and hard-to-find sneakers chatted by the display window, while Dawson coached a recent high school graduate and aspiring filmmaker on how to get support for his work, stopping periodically to introduce himself to new customers.

And in a far corner, Mayan Tamang, who as a teenager used to break-dance just down the street, was proudly showing customers shirts from his exclusive clothing line on the racks at the Attic.