Having heard news that there were chances of thunderstorm in Las Vegas, I was prepared to spend my stay in dreary rainy weather. But no. What kind of meteorologist says that it’ll rain…in the desert. Take no heed to anyone who says it’ll rain in Las Vegas. Today I baked and toasted under the hot desert heat like an omelette on a grill.

I arrived yesterday to our modest but rather very large hotel 15 mins off the strip at South Point Hotel Casino & Spa. The rooms are large and comfortable, very clean, huge plasma screen and a great view over the hotel’s pool.

But enough about hotel and comfort talk, let’s talk fashion and shopping in Las Vegas.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Las Vegas is building CityCenter on the Vegas Strip right next to the Bellagio Hotel. It’s slated to open in 2009 and construction has already been underway and had progressed much faster than I had anticipated. This patch of land already has the infrastructure to a near completion, a few of the buildings are already halfway through putting on the glistening silvery windows. CityCenter will definitely stand out in the Strip as I noticed many other buildings may be flashy with lights, but many are covered in gold mirror like windows. CityCenter will be all silver mirrored.

Caesar’s Palace : The Forum Shops

Not exactly knowing why Caesar’s Palace was deemed la creme de la creme of shopping areas, I understood the moment I set foot in The Forum Shops. A gargantuan maze of marble floors, winding escalators at the entrance, fountain center pieces galore with painted sky domed ceilings, and well over 100 high end brand names including Emilio Pucci, Christian Lacroix, St-John, Roberto Cavalli, Tourneau (a luxury watch store) and even a huge Trojan horse at FAO Schwartz. Tourists crowd the Italy flavored hallways as they are mesmerized by the beautiful sculptures and captivating lighting. The luxury stores were scarcely empty except for the venerable Louis Vuitton store. However, it isn’t to say that they weren’t making any money. I’ve seen dozens of tourist carry shopping bags from Gucci and Dior.

In general the atmosphere was completely commercial, enticing shoppers to spend their precious money at every stop. It was very hard to resist even for someone like me to simply pass by.

Fashion Show Mall

This huge mall is more catered to the general public but remained less crowded than The Forum Shops. The main concept for this mall is that there is a huge center runway in the middle of the mall, with a control room on the 2nd floor which controls the lights above it. From what I saw on the screens, there are regular fashion shows at the mall and models strut down the runway. I call it the Vegas Panache. They always have to add a lil form of entertainment value.

Here you’ll find many generic mainstream brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, Steve Madden, etc. There were also the high end department stores like Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as the lower end like Macy’s and Dillard’s. There were a couple of stores that caught my eye, mainly a store I fancy called White House & Black Market. I especially liked their strapless bubble skirt dresses, and the quality looked satisfactory. My main problem with this store is the fit, just a tad too big even as a size 0. A shame, it’s a really lovely store.

Style? What style?

There’s not much to speak of in terms of fashion style in Las Vegas. Everyone’s wearing board shorts, thonged sandals and tshirts. Only at night can you see the few who bother to dress up for a night out on the town, but there’s nothing really relevant to say about American style dressing (sorry). From my experience so far, most American cities are not quite into fashion eventhough they have a huge spending purse for luxury goods. But like many affluent shoppers who love to buy luxury items, they can’t dress themselves to save their lives (I am being biased of course, but if you want a city with style I would say Montreal, Tokyo and New York are the most fashionable I’ve seen so far). I am hopeful that I’ll see more interesting styles in Los Angeles and San Francisco though.

I’m on current a mission to find toy slot machines, the kind that acts like a bank and also serves as an entertaining slot machine. Anyone happen to know where I can find one? It’s for a friend since she couldn’t make it to Vegas with me.

I’ll also be attending a Cirque du Soleil show called “Ka” at the MGM Grand. Originally I had wanted to see “O” at the Bellagio, but unfortunately they don’t play Mondays and Tuesdays. Oh well, at least just one show will be enough.

All 720 items to be exact.

A quick look on eBay, and you can already see a huge list of 191 items for sale from the same collection. Prices are inflated to already twice the price. One seller put up the gold sequin dress at a staggering $590.00CAD. Easily surpassing what I spilled over a BCBG dress. There are already 7 bids on the gold snake bracelet staying “low” at $65.00, but we’ll certainly see those numbers multiply when the auction ends.

The items come from all over the globe the UK, the US, Canada, Switzerland, China, Germany, France and so on. Sellers are having their own exclusive H&M sale, with slogans yelling “SOLD OUT!” and “Only 1 on eBay!”

Scalpers never had it so good.

Get Ready To Rumble

A word to the wise, if you even think about lining up only an hour before the doors open on Thursday, think again. In the past and around the world, shoppers experienced a shocker when they found a huge lineup outside H&M’s doors as early as 5 in the morning.

In 2005, it was Stella McCartney. Liz Jones from the Evening Standard in London covered her experience at H&M. She arrived 8am, the doors didn’t open until 9am and already there was a monstrous lineup. One nanny had arrived at 6:30am to buy a pair of trousers and a black dress. Most already knew what they were buying, some grabbed whatever they could and by 9:10am, the store was empty.

In 2006, Viktor & Rolf released their collection in New York, Kendall Herbst from New York Magazine described shoppers literally at war with one another. Women grabbing armloads of clothes and they didn’t care what they were getting. Shoppers sprinting, spinning, swapping, hell, it was chaos.

So if you have an eye on that leopard print silk dress, you better know your size and you better arrive early. Take no prisoners!

H&M stores around Montreal

All stores open between 10am and 9pm.

Rockland Centre
Galerie D’Anjou
Fairview Pointe-Claire
Mail Champlain
Carrefour Laval

**Please note that Cavalli’s collection will only be available at the Rockland Centre, sorry about that!