Happy Holidays!

I just wanted to wish my readers and passerbys a Happy Holiday!

I am currently in Houston with my family for the next couple of weeks. Reporting on fashion here will be a little difficult considering that this city is the Disney World of chain stores.

Here’s one peculiar thing I noticed here: there is only ONE American Apparel store in Houston. In Montreal there is at least 4 American Apparel stores in the near downtown vicinity. But I can understand why this chain may not be very successful…Houston is considered one of the fattest cities in America. From my understanding, AA is a chain that caters to a certain demographic, and that seems to exclude the overweight.

My recent experience at Banana Republic had the store assistant literally dismantle a mannequin sporting this really nice slate gray cardigan because it was an XS - the only one left in the store.

BCBG is also carrying slightly tamer versions of their Hervé Léger bandage dresses oddly enough. Making real Hervé Léger dresses less special. Why would you want to pay $1000 on an Herve Leger dress when you can get something similar, owned by the SAME company, for a fraction of the price?  A look at the online website doesn’t reveal this, you would have to shop at Dillard’s to see the knock off collection. Max Azria is shooting himself in the foot with this move.

Bakers, a Montreal equivalent to Aldo shoe stores, carried a trendy line of shoes, but made of the worst quality. The leather looked cheap and tattered on the edges and the soles stiffer than cardboard.

Speaking of Aldo, they’re also turning more and more like Nine West and Steve Madden by copying a pair of Michael Kors’ Berkley T-strap sandals, with their Tavira shoes. What’s funny is that the MK version is only $129, and the Aldo shoes are $90.00. Knock offs are getting more and more expensive!

More updates to come soon hopefully.

Enjoy your holidays!