Dualité

I’m starting a new self-observing shopping section on this blog, to keep track of my spendings on the clothes that I buy. Starting with the first official purchase of the year, I’d like to know how long garmens will last considering of my somewhat rough handling of them. I call it “The Closet Price Tag” and made a special page for it to give a summary of my purchases.

The first purchase of the year goes to the Calvin Klein’s cable knit sweater. Bought on sale for $100 at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. 80% lambswool and 20% cashmere. Made in China. Dry Clean only.

Only A Handful of Stores

It’s perhaps the first and only Calvin Klein store I’ve ever seen or been to, as the brand has been out of the limelight for a while, it’s only recently re-emerging and repositioning itself in the market. Considering its previous success with its perfume and jeans line in the 1980s and 1990s, I’m surprised that CK had never  officially opened any stand alone retail stores. As of late, since Francisco Costa, who had taken over as head designer for the brand, I’ve come to really appreciate the minimalistic look with luxurious fabrics on the runway. I’ve heard little about their bridge collections, so I was pleased to visit the Calvin Klein store in Vegas.

According to Wikipedia, the following brand names are as followed:

• Calvin Klein Collection (black label, top-end designer line)
• ck Calvin Klein (grey label, recently repositioned as bridge collection line)
• Calvin Klein (white label, better sportswear line)
• Calvin Klein Sport (sports version of the white label line for Macy’s)
• Calvin Klein Jeans (denimwear line)
• Calvin Klein Home (high end bedding, towel, bath rug and accessory collections)
• Calvin Klein Golf (launched in late 2007)
• Calvin Klein Underwear (underwear collections)

I have yet to see or notice an actual Calvin Klein Collection piece in the higher end department stores, it would be great to see anything up close and personal for judgement.

The store I’ve been to is clearly Calvin Klein (white label line), offering a nice collection of gray toned apparels in silks, cashmere and wool blends. The silk dresses were of nice prints, however upon touching them, they were unlined and had a familiar H&M quality to them. Prices are accessible like Banana Republic, around $50 to $500.

The cable knit sweater I bought was on sale, if you can call it that, for $100. I’ve been searching for a nice warm cable knit sweater, but can’t seem to find any in Montreal’s bargain hunting grounds. No doubt the Calvin Klein label doesn’t seem to make an appearance in our local luxury stores. It is indeed a warm sweater, however it has a tendency to leave pieces of itself on darker clothing. I had reservations about the Made in China label. An indication that it was made for cheap but with very skilled hands (or machinery). The debate comes down to: which of the evils do you choose? Have those dollars spent to support the overworked laborers in China so they can feed themselves of what little they can save? Or, not pay for the sweater and thinking of the risk that that factory may not exist in a year or so?

The purchase itself may seem like such an easy thing to do, however, our little action of buying somehow goes down much deeper to the person on the other side of the world. It’s hard to decide. Keep supporting Chinese manufacturers to feed those that need work (despite them being overworked) or not support them and take away their hard earned money.

In the end I went for the purchase. I don’t know if my purchase will help keep Chinese people their jobs or not, I don’t know if the manufacturers in Italy or Scotland should be better off with my money, eventhough on a certain standpoint, Chinese people need it much more than Europeans do. I’d like to think I’m helping the Chinese, but who can really say? This is what I wish I knew more about the manufacturing industry…where does your dollar really go?

Total spent for 2009 closet: $100.00

My trip to Las Vegas was wrapped up by taking a stroll around the ritzy hotels of The Wynn and The Palazzo. Both were highly luxurious hotels to stroll in with the biggest names in the industry with some unique boutiques such as Oscar de la Renta, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Van Cleef & Arpels, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin. Needless to say, all the stores were out of my price range, but still walking through these beautiful hotels was worth the trip.

It’s a beautiful smoggy morning in sunny California

Yes, smog is a huge problem in the state of California. An hour away from LA I could already see the smog hazily hanging over the rolling golden California mountains. The traffic is incredible, I’ve never seen so many cars in one area. However, spending much time here can easily make you forget that there’s smog in the air since you have to really be on the outskirts of the city to see it.

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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.

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I’m going on a trip to Las Vegas, LA and San Francisco next week, and hopefully I’ll have enough time to properly blog this time. My trip to Japan was great, but I didn’t have any energy left to blog since I was exhausted of the 5hr walking trips I’d take every day.

Had I known that Las Vegas had signed a whopping $9 billion deal to create perhaps the most luxurious retail space in North America, I would’ve postponed my trip til next year. According to WWD, CityCenter is an 18 million square feet of commercial space that will include over 70 retailers, a 61-story, 4,000-room gaming resort; three luxury nongaming hotels, and a 5000 square foot “flower carpet” where flowers will be changed daily. CityCenter will feature The Crystals – 500,000 square foot of retail space. And I thought our H&M’s 15,000 square feet of space was big. Perhaps there’s a reason why I’m not in architecture right? Most of the well known luxury brands will take up space in this new project including a 10,000 sq.ft for Tiffany’s, and the second largest Louis Vuitton store in North America. Nevermind that many of these retailers already have several store locations in the city.

Frankly, I’m split two ways about it. One is that I’m majorily curious as to what these fanciful places look like (so far they all look the same either in the US or in Japan’s Ginza district). Plus, will they make a profit from all this construction? Second, $9 billion dollars? Is it really necessary to have a repeat of the same luxury retailers? Do you know where all that good money can be used for to help poorer countries? This is what’s contradicting of the luxury world, you have all this money, and you’re always seeking more of it when you very well know you could perhaps donate a few dollars – ok, thousands, hell, millions of dollars – for charities and such.

We will see next year. For now, I will be making rounds in Vegas and dutifully make observations on the shopping experience. I haven’t been to Vegas since I was 12, and back then I was confined to the Circus Circus arcades where I wasted many hours of my youth fending for raffle tickets that would get me at most a toy water gun. I was even told by my mum that the Golden Strip “didn’t exist” when I had asked her about it.

San Francisco should be lovely as I heard so many good things about it. My stop in the LA area would be more so on the beaches of Santa Monica, I’m not really interested in LA to be honest. All that Hollywood gossip is such a turn off.

Image credits: CityCenter (artist rendition)