Shine (10 page)

Even Cheaper, Even Chicer

• Visit the vintage stores.
  Certain clothes just seem to assume that a beautiful and fascinating woman will be wearing them. Ironically, they’re often found in dusty vintage clothing shops, and although they come from the nineteen twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties, they’re timeless. You can mix antique looks with trendy styles and emerge with extraordinary style. I bought a blue beaded top in such a vintage store that Diana Vreeland might have worn, and then found brand-new and exactly matching St. John pants. A Balenciaga ball gown or a Fortuny velvet jacket can be bought for a fraction of what it cost new—even fifty years ago! A forties man’s antique satin cummerbund can dress up a new wool shift. This look is for the original and the daring who appreciate the finest fashion.
  
• Visit the auction houses.
  Every large city and small town has an auction house. Ask when they’ll be selling “old clothes,” and make time for a browse. The most interesting items can be inexpensively purchased at such auctions. An exquisite lace Victorian nightgown can be altered by a dressmaker to create the most beautiful summer party dress. Beaded bags, embroidered jackets—let your creativity roam wild.
  
• Visit your little corner dressmaker.
  Have a dress/skirt/suit you love and wish you’d bought two of twenty years ago? A good dressmaker can duplicate it or, as a matter of fact, copy anything you bring to her. A photograph of a Chanel suit in this month’s
  Vogue
  can be copied and whipped up for a fraction of the cost Coco would have charged.
  
• Visit the good department stores at sale time.
  Ask the information lady in any fine department store when the yearly sale will occur, and plan to spend the morning shopping. Sales often occur after Christmas and in mid-August. Real bargains are available here, and because the merchandise is top-notch, you do better than in a tacky store that sports cheaper (in every way) goods, all year long.
  
• Visit the showrooms.
  Some major fashion designers open their
  showrooms to the public once or twice a year as a goodwill gesture or perhaps to sell slightly model-worn merchandise. Call the offices of your favorite designers (Armani? Bill Blass? Yves Saint Laurent?) and ask if the public is ever permitted to browse and buy. Unfortunately, this happens only in major cities: you won’t find a Givenchy showroom in HoHoKus, New Jersey.
  
• Visit the street.
  If you live in a big city, you’re familiar with the street vendors who sell the inexpensive copies (or interpretations, as I like to call them) of the costlier versions. Sure, it’s not nice and, in some cases, probably illegal to rip off the name brands, but it’s not breaking a law to buy them—in fact, I think that occasional shopping at the vendors on the block is the quintessential definition of street smarts. If you know what the real thing looks like (and do your homework here—go to the good department stores to closely inspect the product that’s being emulated), sometimes you can find an interpretation that’s almost indistinguishable from the original. It’s one-millionth the price. Purses, jewelry, watches—even some beautiful clothes are readily available on a vendor’s makeshift metal table. Think about it.
  

What Goes On in the Discount Stores, Stays in the Discount Stores

Where is it written that you have to pay full price for looking good? The savviest women I know, even the wealthiest women I know are drawn by the scent of a bargain. Don’t get in their way; don’t get in my way when Prada beckons at a discounted price.

Okay: Here it is, my Insider Guide to Fabulous Fashion Finds. But don’t tell everybody, please. I’m about to break my own rule and hip everyone to my favorite places to shop cheaply, but it’s a good idea in general not to give all your secrets away. If you find a really, really, really good outlet that sells really, really, really good “interpretations” of Versace suits, and if you tell all your acquain
tances, everyone will have your look. Not great. That’s one of the reasons, in all honesty, I like to shop alone.

Here are my true confessions: I used to shop alone because I was a bigger girl than my girlfriends. It wasn’t that I was uncomfortable watching them pull on the teeny-tiny jeans that wouldn’t fit on my thigh. I was uncomfortable because I was selfish. I didn’t want to sit around watching you put on size 6 jeans when I needed to get to Lane Bryant for my size 18. But now that I’m thinner, I still feel the same way. When I’m shopping, I’m shopping for me, not for you, and I don’t have that much time these days for that pleasure. I could have been done and gone to the next location while you were just taking off your third pair of something. I know what looks good on me, I know what I like, and I don’t
need
even good friends telling me how fabulous or unfabulous something is. Now, if you’re one of my girls and you need to shop for something special and you want me to come along for support and advice, I’m there, with my whole heart. But that’s not shopping for me. That I do alone at my special places.

Now that I’m making it all public, I’ll see you at the secret places, girl! Don’t get too chatty—I’m there to get things done.

Star’s Insider Guide to Fabulous Fashion Finds

I don’t know why anyone would pay full price for an Escada dress, a Chanel suit, an Armani coat, a Loro Piana cashmere throw, a Carolina Herrera wedding dress, Ferragamo shoes, or a Bottega Veneta purse when you can buy these and hundreds of thousands of other items at discounts from 15 to up to 75 percent at the designer outlets. Don’t be intimidated by the names of these fancy stores—remember, we’re stepping up our look here. The fashion magazines tell us what is hot; we’re just getting what’s hot at a cool price.

While there have always been smaller discount stores in most communities that carried nice quality and brand-name merchandise at greatly reduced prices (Loehmann’s, TJ Maxx, Bolton’s, Target, or Burlington Coat Factory, for
example), you’re lucky to be living in a decade where the art of the fabulous fashion find has been taken to new heights. I’ve traveled to those heights, and I tell you, there are fashion treasures to be found up there at incredibly low prices.

Mark It Down and They Will Come

The really exciting finds are usually unearthed in places called outlet or factory centers, and each has its own merchants who rent space from the center. Most are to be found on the Internet under “Shopping Outlet Centers,” and many have stores from coast to coast.

Make no mistake: this is not ordinary mall shopping. The outlets are designed for upscale, fashion-conscious shoppers who are looking for top-quality and designer labels. Still, every outlet is not the same as every other because some offer a far larger selection of the highest-quality merchandise,
and some offer more of the midline stores like the Gap, Old Navy, Jones of New York, and Nike.

The marvelous thing about all this is that no matter where you live in the United States and in many areas where you might be traveling in Europe, Japan, or Mexico—or in a million other places—you can probably find an outlet center not far from where you are. Many of these outlets can be found together online, if you plug “fashion outlet centers” into your search engine.

And here’s a great tip: most of these outlets have deals with bus and limousine companies to ferry passengers from a spot close to their homes to the center of the outlet. Just call or e-mail the outlet that sounds most terrific and ask for its public transportation schedules.

In addition to individual outlet centers composed of thousands of specialty stores selling their own top brand merchandise (like Coach, Celine, Loro Piana, Judith Lieber, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole, Seiko watches, Godiva chocolate, Crabtree & Evelyn, Dress Barn, Waterford crystal, Betsey Johnson, Etro, and Armani, for example), many fine department stores have their own outlet stores within the larger outlet center. There they sell their merchandise at vastly reduced rates because it may be last season’s or this season’s unsold but perfect merchandise. Saks Fifth Avenue, for example, has stores called Off 5th in outlets all over the country. Barneys and Brooks Brothers and many other great department stores all operate factory outlets, and the bargains to be found there are amazing.

Here’s a bonus feature very few people know about, even those who customarily frequent designer outlets: if you go to the Web site of the particular outlet, and click on Coupons or Sales and Events, you’ll often be able to print out an extra certificate for approximately 15–25 percent off your already bargain-priced purchases. Some outlets require that you join a “shopper’s club,” which is usually free and consists of just giving them your name and address online to get the discount coupons and coupon books.
Star tip:
use a fake e-mail address so you don’t have to give out yours. My favorite catch e-mail site is www.dodgeit.com. You can make up an e-mail address (
[email protected],
for example) and go there to check it. All you have to do is look up the name you used and any mail you’ve received is right there, and it doesn’t clutter up your real e-mail address. Plus it’s free. Use it girl!

A point to remember: if you’re searching for a particular brand or designer, the Internet can again be enormously helpful. On the Web, call up the outlet that you suspect might carry your dream shoes, type in the designer or brand name, and you’ll immediately see if the center near you offers those particular beauties.

Okay: here is the information you crave—and most of these outlets have locations coast to coast.

Star’s Guide to the Best Outlet Shopping in America

• Chicago Premium Outlets
  

• The Crossings Premium Outlets
  

• Desert Hills Premium Outlets
  

• Great Lakes Crossing
  

• Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets