Department Stores in NYC

I tell you, all of you who know me well, you know that I simply cannot blog about all the departmental stores in 1 post. So I shall just give you a brief intro to each store, and I shall introduce them. and since this is the first

Like singapore, there are many levels of department stores. In America, Ralph Lauren is like the Raoul of Singapore, upscale yet affordable. and Tommy hilfiger, apparently doesn't exist in high fashion dictionaries. Or maybe I'm not paying too much attention to him. In this land of rarefied names, nothing is too exclusive to be even inside a department store.

Let's start with the John Little's of New York. Macy's. To call it John Little's is really an insult, as the term would be more befitting that of Kmart and Walmart. Even Target isn't that bad anymore. But it's the closest departmental store chain I can compare it to. Imagine that John Little's had ralph lauren. And Louis Vuitton That's how far the comparison is. Macy's proclaims itself to be the biggest shopping centre in the world. and holy shit, Can you imagine a whole freaking block of building all housing just 1 shopping center? I got a calf ache just by walking from broadway to the exit on the other side. That's how big the shop is. And the fact that I'm a hardened shopper with a declining fitness level due to laziness to go to the gym sort of evens out and makes me a normal person.

10freaking floors of shopping, and guess what, the place is divided into 4 sections. Basement is food and supermarket. 1/6 of the building vertically is male. about 1/6 of the remainder is the accessories and jewellery department. And the rest, is FEMALE related stuff. ie. clothes, bed linen, clothes and more clothes. Let's start with the accessories floor. When you go in, its just miraculous. You see rows and rows of bags and rows and rows of people. These are not shoppers. they are assistants to help you shop. to look for that perfect bag amidst this handbag swamp. It's crazy. Belle asked me to find a handbag for her, and i can tell you, This scene at macy's represents the microtip of the iceberg. Everywhere in New York you will find and see handbags after handbags. and the scene repeats itself the next row with tons of pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and etc etc etc.

and you'll be wondering, when is this going to end. Never. next we go onto the concourse level, where its the beauty section. Let me just indulge here, it has like practically everything. sisely, estee, clinique, max factor, MAC, shisheido, aveda and whatever god conspires to create as powder for the face appears here. Wait, you must be wondering, where's the men's stuff. well, these scenes are all repeated on the men's side.

I really don't know about clothes, especially female ones, cos I'm not that insane to go up 10 freaking stories, of which like 7 are dedicated to female clothes. And for god sakes, there's like 1 theme for every level. sportswear, loungewear, lingerie and nightwear, workwear, formalwear, hipwear, brandwear. it's just madness. level after level of female clothes. I mean, how do you finish shopping? I just barely conquered new york almost all the guy places, but if you're a girl, i tell you just give up. there's even a jimmy choo, stuart weitzman, manolo blahnik and roger vivier ( the original inventor of the high heel) here.

Now to the guy section. I'm not particularly impressed with macy's not because it has what you call the wallstreet curse. It would seem that in New york, each department store has a niche. When it says it carries DKNY, it doesn't carry DKNY everything. For example in macy's and most of the other departmental stores, they tend to cater to the more uppercrusted old neckties potbellied executives. and thus, their men's section is almost wholly shirts, ties, suits, pants and sports coats. There's like nothing else. even a polo tee is considered a rarity. where are the T shirts and the jeans? Apparently, streetwear and hipwear is for other speciality shops like Lounge, Scoop and others. btw, I saw cameron diaz at lounge the other day.

but yeah, back to it, its huge. I mean I can't describe more but just imagine, tons and tons of suits, tables and tables of shirts and designer corners where you have the store within a store concept, similar to takashimaya back in singapore. unfortuantely, nothing that was on sale caught my fancy, and thus i came from macy's empty handed. The only shops i came back from that were fruitful were actually bergdorf goodmans and barneys new york, which in my opinion are the best of the best. for gods sake, they had like half a floor dedicated to prada. thats like how superior it is. and for the guys side, they had the usual guys fragrances, colognes, cosmetics and everything. but the nice thing about macy's was, everybody is so friendly. I felt so bad I didn't buy anything cos it's pretty much the most reasonable of all the department stores.

As for food, I didn't really explore, but it's not really like some gourmet's paradise. The main attraction of this place is simply the shopping. And lest my memory leave me, the food paradise shares half its level with the young men's section. with things like rocawear, tommy bahama. hugo boss and dkny jeans is the highest it goes to. but still, like almost 1/4 of the shop is dedicated to ralph lauren and polo ralph lauren and its jeans company.

I think it must be quite boring for you now. Honestly, macy's was really boring for me cos I'm not impressed with what else they had. there's like ralph lauren on every corner of new york that I can't even be bothered to even step into a shop since it's so freaking accessible. But I think I'll head towards macy's come memorial day and try to pick up something there, cos I like the little big plastic paper bag with the red star and the word MACY'S