In SoHo.(stores in SoHo part of New York, New York)(Directory)

"Well, I guess it's for . . . a couch?" a saleswoman at the Rem Koolhaas-designed PRADA store in SoHo (575 Broadway; 334-8888) says, showing off a fox-fur pillow ($2,360) so enormous that she can barely get her arms around it. Though any number of delightfully nutty, luxurious items join the Prada pillow this season--Lucite Cinderella sandals with scarlet velvet heels ($430), evening clutches made of black satin instead of Prada's traditional black nylon ($555)--the company has taken the bold step of reintroducing hits from the past. Thus a woman who longed for a mirror-bedecked chiffon tunic ($5,740) but didn't buy it the first time around now has a second chance; the fluttery lipstick-patterned camiknickers ($1,255), whose design owes something to the Surrealists, have also resurfaced.

No one over at LOUIS VUITTON (116 Greene St.; 866-884-8866) appears to be heeding the news that logos are out of fashion--most of the merchandise incorporates the house's insignia with varying degrees of subtlety. Though Vuitton calls them Miami loafers, a pair of gentlemen's slip-ons ($435), made of calfskin and featuring a miniature version of the Damier-check pattern, would be equally at home in a shooting box in Scotland. In its ongoing efforts to prove how young and hip it is, the company offers nail polish in bottles that look like bigger Damier checks, packed two to the box in Elvira-friendly color combinations like beige with green ($67). But, of course, the firm's dignified roots are never far away: along with the bowling bags and messenger totes is a solidly built fitted case that the store claims is intended for cosmetics but which looks for all the world like an old-fashioned train case ($2,020).

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD (71 Greene St.; 334-1500) may have restyled herself as a serious student of philosophy, but her clothes still appeal to people more interested in Eminem than in Emerson. A man's polka-dot cardigan ($540) with graduating dots appears intended for a latter-day Sebastian Flyte; a pair of coquettish pink-and-black Argyle tights ($175), which Westwood designed in collaboration with Wolford, exhibits the punk-courtesan sensibility that has defined this designer since she set up shop in London's Chelsea three decades ago.

Though a number of SoHo shops appear, even on Saturday afternoon, to be fairly customer-deprived, this is not the case at FLYING A (169 Spring St.; 965-9090), where an international throng of teen-agers gleefully squeeze themselves into the smallest possible jeans and tees. Still, the stars of the show are the vintage flight bags ($69 to $99). According to the shop's manager, herself clad in a pair of tiny jeans, the store doesn't bother to empty the bags before they hit the counters; hidden treasures occasionally surface. When a red-and-white TWA carry-on yields a well-thumbed deck of playing cards, the clerk gets excited. "They're from the seventies!" she says. "I play a lot of cards, and I can tell by the way the joker looks."

Despite the high-priced Balenciagas and Jimmy Choos, there's a wilder spirit afoot at KIRNA ZABeTE (96 Greene St.; 941-9656), where posters on the fitting-room doors read, "I must not chase the boys," scrawled repeatedly in a childish hand. Downstairs, there's a selection of extravagant cashmere accessories from a company called Fifi & Romeo. An infant's baseball sweater in yellow with white sleeves is appliqued ...