Combo fashion boutique, hair salon, cafe coming to The Legends

Changing rooms with a twist at Deegie’s Carma.

Another retail concept will make its national debut in Kansas City, Kan.

Deegie’s Carma is scheduled to open in spring 2008 in The Legends at Village West, where the first-of-its-kind T-Rex restaurant opened in 2006. Fifteen more Deegie’s Carma boutique/salon/cafes are planned for other midsized and large markets.

The 18,000-square-foot operation will combine a fashion boutique with a hair salon offering manicures and pedicures, and a cafe serving salads, wraps and blended fruit drinks. Customers will be able to experiment with products at a cosmetics and fragrance bar.

Deegie’s Carma is geared to men and women ages 18 to 28.

“To be able to stay in one place and get your hair and nails done, to eat, to get a makeover, to meet with your friends,” said Carmela Spinelli, chief creative officer of Three Wildcats LLC, the New York-based company behind the new concept. “The experience is really key here.”

The Three Wildcats are:

•Spinelli, formerly associate chair of the department of fashion design at Parsons The New School for Design under chair Tim Gunn. She also served as director of the New York flagship store for French fashion house Celine, where her responsibilities included store buying, merchandising, sales analysis, store events and trunk shows.

•John Wilson, president and chief executive officer of Three Wildcats, who has more than 24 years of experience in fashion, retail and wholesale, particularly with luxury retailers such as Nordstrom, Salvatore Ferragamo and Vestimenta Inc., an Italian luxury apparel and sportswear company. Most recently he was a director at the investment banking firm Net Worth Solutions Inc.

•David Hulshof, chief financial officer of Three Wildcats and a Kansas City native and resident, who has more than 15 years of investment banking, strategic growth, financial management, operations and startup experience with such companies as CBIZ, Mayer Hoffman McCann and Buena Vista Partners.

To finance the concept and roll it out nationwide, Three Wildcats has teamed with RED Development — of Kansas City and Phoenix — and a private investment group led by RED.

RED, which developed and manages The Legends, has more than 30 shopping centers open or in development throughout the country. Additional Deegie’s Carma locations are planned for some RED projects as well as other developments in such cities as Austin, Texas; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; and Phoenix/Scottsdale, Ariz.

“Middle markets are primarily where we will be looking,” said Dan Lowe, managing partner of RED. “Those markets tend to be more underserved on the higher fashion spots.”

Deegie’s Carma will offer such brands as French Connection, Canterbury of New Zealand, Betseyville and Chilli Pepper. But Wilson and Spinelli also plan to tap into their network to introduce new designers, including some from the Kansas City area. Unlike some youth-oriented shops that concentrate on casual wear, Deegie’s Carma will span the range from fashionable pajamas to professional attire to dress clothes. Items will range in price from $10 to $250 with special items up to $450 or more.

Sales clerks will be referred to as “personal stylists” and may put outfits together, much like video store clerks offer their recommended movies.

Gensler, a New York-based global design, planning and strategic consulting firm, put together a modern, uncluttered look for Deegie’s Carma, with crisp colors, and steel and wood panels that can be rearranged for a variety of floor plans. Laser-cut layers will create a three-dimensional graphic effect. Gensler won Chain Store Age’s 2006 Retail Store of the Year for its design of Barneys New York’s Dallas store.

The cafe will serve as the hub on an elevated platform reached by a fashion runwaylike ramp. It will have three plasma TVs, and dance club music that a New York disc jockey is putting together. It also will host guest DJs.

“You want to feel like you are at a party but not so loud that you want to leave,” Spinelli said.

The Deegie’s name reflects the partners’ sense of playfulness. Deegie is the nickname Wilson gave his little sister, and Carma is what Spinelli’s young nephew dubbed her when he couldn’t pronounce Carmela.

For its next retail concept, Three Wildcats said it is looking at One Nineteen, the Crate and Barrel center at 119th Street and Roe Avenue. That concept will be geared toward men and women ages 25 to 54.

The Cityscape column runs Tuesdays and Fridays in the business section. To reach Joyce Smith, call 816-234-4692 or send email to jsmith@kcstar.com.