NYC shopping trip report

[bigbadbuff]

I am sad to say that overall, I was very disappointed with the shopping aspect of my trip (the rest was great). I only had 3/4 of 1 day to devote to shopping so thusly did not get to visit many places on my list (most notably the Union Square Filene's Basement, Barney's, Paul Stuart, flagship Zegna and Prada stores). A brief summary of the places I did visit: 1) Polo Mansion on Madison- certainly the best/most I've seen of RL all in one space. Very good, varied selection of Blue Label items- decent selection of Purple Label, which surprised me. They did have several suits that I checked out- all superb. The Blue Label Corneliani suits are also very well done, BL has gotten better in quality to go along with the price increases IMO. Sale was blah at best- 30/40% off retail for mostly BL. I did not expect much more than that before Thanksgiving though. Picked up a bottle of PL cologne, that's it. 2) Bergdorf Goodman- a complete waste of time. Some of the most 'out of touch with reality' salespeople and clientele I've ever seen in a store. Women's building across the street was even worse. No sales that I saw. 3) Prada on Madison- have to believe this is nothing like their flagship. Pretty small selection for men/women. Some very nice looking suits, all $2500+, yipes. No sales. 4) Ferragamo flagship- probably the best of the dept. stores I went in in terms of staff/product/sales. Very nice guy in upstairs shoe dept. helped me find several pairs I'd never seen before- and they had probably every model Ferragamo makes. Sale was 20-40% off retail, which still brought nothing down into my range. 5) Century 21- went twice, 1st time it was shoulder to shoulder

scary amount of people. Prices were standard discount store prices- which means some pretty good items at decent, not purchase-worthy, prices. Good overcoat selection and suit selection- plenty of Brioni for $1500ish. 6) Filene's Basement- 6th and 18th location I think- again some pretty good deals but few were great. Some WOULD have been great had the item not been badly damaged- many a shirt/sportcoat had what looked to be red dye on it, some with rips. Definitely look over anything from stores like this thoroughly before buying. Terrible shoe selection at ALL the discount stores, nothing but low end. Purchases: only 1 purchase- a grey Prada sportcoat, 2 button double vent; retail $1450, bought for $170

Hoping for better luck on the next trip and better sales.

 

[Mike C.]

Sounds like you had a great time... even if you're not buying much, NYC shopping is worth it for the experience alone. It's certainly the most impressive shopping destination I've been anywhere in the world.

IMO the best shopping is on the stretch of Madison Avenue, starting with Barney's on 60th, and ending at the Polo Mansion on 72nd. Along the way, you'll find Erto, Hermes, Beretta, Malo, Valentino, John Lobb, Silvano Lattanzini, David Cenci, etc... Plus there are the real, not tourist locations of Gucci, YSL, D&G, and Versace. Though I'm not buying left and right at these stores just yet, it's nice reguardless.

I should add that people looking to pay less than retail at any uptown stores in NYC will be dissapointed. Unfortunatly, there are very few sales, and even still I wouldn't consider them to be bargains by any means.

 

[audiophilia]

I'm here this week and have been generally disappointed with the shopping. Saks not good this year. Sales start today, so maybe I'll have a little more luck. Shoes were much better at Bergdorf, considering last year was crap. Zegna's 5th Ave. store looked tremendous, except for some (nice) handgrades with obscene prices.

So far, only spent $$$ at Coach for my wife.

Today, we'll head out to Lobb, Testoni, Santoni and maybe to Leffot. Will grab lunch at Morelli's in RC then maybe hit AE and Barney's.

I wonder if Borelli ties are worth $300.00?

More later.

BTW, where are all the ******* wine deals? $$$ than the frigging communist LCBO. LOL

 

[chrome_dout]

I love NYC, it makes Toronto look like a fishing village. Anyway I was there over the Memorial Day holiday and did not pick up anything from the city, all my purchases were made at Woodbury.

 

[Kuro]

I prefer BG to all the other department stores in NYC, but IMHO the problems with it are: (1) the layout is poor; (2) they devote so much selling space to major brands that have boutiques within walking distance (e.g. Loro Piana, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, Zegna, Brioni, Kiton, Giorgio Armani); and (3) the shoe department is just horrible. They could probably just move it back across the street and edit everything down.