Last Minute Buys

My flight wasn't leaving until the middle of the afternoon, having checked out of the hotel in the morning, I had enough time to run round the last few shops that I could manage and buy all the things that had caught my attention the first time around.

Firstly, I went to Shoewoo near Park Avenue Bloomingdales. The window display of the huge pile of shoes that appeared to have buried a woman was the thing that caught my attention. Inside the small shop, the furniture was shoe shaped and there were shoes hanging from everything as well as rotating shoe displays that were placed in the middle of the shop. I managed to find an amazing pair of grey boots that fitted me perfectly. They were so cheap that I felt like I was robbing them.

With time ticking away, we caught a taxi down to Soho again, learning from yesterday's mistake of trying to walk it. We entered the New York version of Topshop as it was just opening and were surprised by the lack of people there during a sale. It seemed very strange to be able to walk around the shop without having to battle other desperate sale seekers out of the way.

It wasn't the clothes that caught my attention, surprisingly it wasn't the underwear either but the Topshop Boutique New York exclusive shoes. At an amazing buy one get one pair free! Obviously it was rude not to try some on, and I figured that if I was going to buy one pair, I may as well get one pair for free. Before I knew what was happening, I was walking out of Topshop, towards Hollister, with three new pairs of shoes. My mind did briefly flit back to my already bulging suitcase and I wandered how I was ever going to be able to get them all home. It was only a brief flit though, as I entered Hollister, fully preparing to buy something else.

One of the things that I noticed when I was walking around was that New Yorkers could spot that we were English from the other side of the street, purely based on the way we dressed. Girls our age out there didn't seem to be as creative and imaginative with putting clothes together, a trait that seems to be something quintessentially English. The preppy style of Hollister and Abercrombie seemed to be most popular with the young New York girls.

When we entered Hollister and I got irritated in the same way that I had in Abercrombie with the lack of lighting and the annoying sales assistant. I was about to give up and go home when a cute red sweatshirt caught my eye. Of course I bought it, rushed back to the hotel and just about managed to shove everything into my suitcase. It took three girls to get it closed but no one could deny that it was closed.

The Meatpacking District

Our aim tonight was to find Buddakan restaurant in the Meat Packing district. We had been recommended to go there by Melinda in Bergdorf Goodman and as soon as we found out it was the setting for Carrie and Big's engagement party in Sex and the City, we couldnt resist.

Unfortunately, being the poor English student tourists that we are we made the mistake of trying to walk there. It was an awfully long way. We gave up about halfway through and tried to find our way around the New York subway system, with very little luck. Before long we were hopelessly lost somewhere around Chelsea, freezing cold and extremely hungry.

As icicles started to form on our hair and face we decided to take refuge in a 1950s style diner and give up on the search for the restaurant. The night ended in a bit of a disaster. I ordered the special of Spinach and Ricotta ravioli, only to be served Lobster ravioli. This wouldnt have been a problem if I wasnt severely allergic to shellfish. The waitress felt terrible but I spent the majority of the night throwing up. She did give us the meal for free, obviously scared that we were going to sue but it really put a downer on the end of a really amazing week.

Soho and the Department Stores

We carried on walking down Fifth avenue until we ran out of Fifth avenue to walk down and eventually found ourselves in Soho area of the city. We searched around for Bloomingdales but eventually gave up and succumbed to the freezing cold. We hailed a cab and made the mistake of asking to be taken to Bloomingdales. He took us to the Bloomingdales that we were nowhere near. The one right at the top of Park avenue. There was nothing we could do but sit and accept the ride and wave goodbye to the hard work we had put into walking all the way down to Soho in the first place.

We had a true shopping experience, and took advantage of the excellent sales assistants. I had my make up done by the Benefit counter and we made our way through the maze of stairs and escalators, navigating our way through designer after designer.

By the time we had gotten to the top floor, I was completely exhausted. Although the feeling of Bloomingdales was much nicer than that of Macy's, I still feel that I prefer a smaller store and the personality of a boutique.

We certainly didn't want to make our way back Down Town after the taxi disaster so we decided to hit the other department stores that were close to this area. Barney's seemed to be no different to Bloomingdales, the layout seemed to be about the same and there still didn't seem to be any kind of personality to the store.

With Bergdorf Goodman however, we were met with a completely different attitude. We were browsing the handbags and accessories on the first floor when we were greeted by a sales assistant who was attracted to our accents. As soon as she found out that we were fashion students she took us aside and spoke to us for around half an hour on the designers and in particular Bergdorf window designer Linda Fargo who has designed some of the most innovative window displays. She gave each of us her card and begged us to apply for an internship over the summer, remembering to mention her name of course. She even took each of our email addresses and photographed us as a group, promising to send it to us.

With a contact made for future work experience, we made our way back to the hotel, to get ready for a meal out in the Meat Packing district tonight.

American Eagle

I was really impressed with American Eagle when we entered it on our wander through the city. It seemed to be what Abercrombie and Fitch should be like, if you got rid of all the pretension and falseness. To start with, natural light coming in through big windows made the products look so much more appealing. I was also relieved to be able to see the difference between a navy and a black denim without needing to move the products closer to a lamp. The staff were dressed in a similar way to the staff at Abercrombie but I didnt feel intimidated in the same way that I had done previously. In Abercrombie, the staff made me feel as if I was intruding on their social life, in American Eagle, they were only to happy to help out.

I really liked the lift style button that was placed inside the changing room to press for assistance. It is a really nice idea and makes the whole experience much more private and personal.

Although I didn't buy anything in this shop, it was still well worth entering. I think it has given me a lot of ideas of devices that can be adopted by UK retailers.

Stop at Strawberry

We carried on walking down towards the Soho area of the city and my attention was caught by a tacky looking shop called strawberry. To be fair, it wasn't the name or the ugly window displays or even the obvious and worn out logo on the front of the shop that grabbed my attention but the silver diamante bralet that was hanging from a rail near the entrance. I couldn't seem to stop myself from walking in.

The shop was nothing special, it reminded me of a 'filler' store that you usually get in most shopping centres. The kind with half mannequins that hang from the ceilings dressed in clothes that look as though they have been rejected from Jane Norman. the bra however, was something that I just couldn't put down. Before I knew what was happening, I was in the changing room, barely covered by a stable style door and trying it on. The next thing I knew I had exited the shop, not only with the bra in my possession but a multi coloured hand bag that had seemed to wink at me as well. In it's favour, the prices were phenomenal, I cant have spent more than $15 for the lot.

American Breakfast and ABC carpet and home

We decided to go and explore Downtown New York today, having exhausted most of Midtown, planning to use our last morning tomorrow to visit uptown and the rest of the department stores.

We headed out of our hotel and this time began to walk down Fifth avenue, in no particular direction, just hoping that we would run into something of interest. After a few minutes, it dawned on us that we hadn't had anything to eat and we were really desperate to eat a really fatty American breakfast. After loading up on carbohydrates, sugar, syrup and pancakes, we felt ready to begin the long walk downtown.

Our first stop on the walk was to enter ABC carpet and home which was an absolutely ingenious shop. The theme of bringing the outside to the inside was immediately apparent in store. The interior had the feeling of a bare warehouse but was then filled with organic looking trees that appeared to be growing within the confines of the space. The juxtaposition of the urban and the organic was extremely effective.

The interior to the first floor of the shop had an unusual feel to it; a cross between a Moroccan style market and a stylish boutique with ethnic rugs and statues dotted haphazardly around the room. There was a wide variety of lighting hanging from the branches of the trees by the ceiling as well as from the roof rafters themselves: From hanging chandeliers to lights designed to look like flickering candles, the overall effect was one of an enchanting wonderland.

Upstairs and towards the rear of the store was the section for children's bedrooms. Each area of the shop was decorated to look like a child's bedroom, creating an interactive and tactile display that really brought the products to life. The voyeuristic feel to the shop was in fact, very effective. There was a feeling that you were entering something real, and everything from the beds to the stuffed toys left on the pillows was for sale.