Israeli designer claims Tel Aviv Mayor "killed" city's bustling Dizengoff Street
Doron Ashkenazi is also launching a new collection of khaki workwear and jeans designed for lawyer and hitchhiker alike
In a bombshell interview for left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the iconic Israeli menswear designer Doron Ashkenazi slammed Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai for having “killed” Dizengoff Street—traditionally the seaside city’s main shopping thoroughfare—adding that “corona confirmed his killing.”
So what’s up with that?
Ashkenazi has had a boutique on Dizengoff Street since 1990, when Tel Aviv was a different city. Ron Huldai has been the mayor of Tel Aviv since basically forever, which is too long for any public official to be in the same office whether they were elected or not, but the important thing to know about Huldai’s too-long tenure is that under his leadership Tel Aviv went from refreshingly cool non-political capital by turns relaxing and rollicking to unfortunate bearer of the title “World’s Most Expensive City.” Which means that while anybody can enjoy Tel Aviv, you need to be an oligarch or maybe worse to really enjoy it. Ugly “luxury” high-rises are sprouting up everywhere, the slender seaside promenade is so crowded you risk getting mowed down by an electric scooter even at midnight, and the traffic? Let’s not go there.
Against such a backdrop doth Ashkenazi’s complaint come. Maybe he’ll close his boutique, as another renowned Israeli designer, David Sassoon, did a few years ago, choosing a less-known location in town. I don’t know. I do know that on a recent trip to Tel Aviv the tenor of Dizengoff Street had changed. Too much ripping up of asphalt and construction of more unnecessary buildings, too little of the quirkiness that made Dizengoff a Tel Aviv must on all visits past. Maybe the Mayor should stand by small business owners as much as he does real estate developers—but prolly kind of hard to do both.
While the interview is in Hebrew, you can read it here.
And check out Doron’s wares here.