Another few Greenbacks bite the dust after day trip to Woodbury Common
In that garish pink taffeta dress, Marilyn Monroe once mused that diamonds are a girl’s best friend; those frosted beauties giving a girl so much pleasure that she might value them more than another salient being. Now, being that I am not a girl, I can’t say that I’d agree either way. But what I would say is that I derive as much pleasure from shoes, bags, clothes and various other accoutrements than I do from jewellery. The investment value is probably not as good. But they’re still pleasurable.
So with that in mind, you can probably imagine my excitement when I heard of this marvellous place called Woodbury Common from a friend of mine who is definitely the most seasoned shopper I know. He promised trinkets at up to 80% off retail from the likes of Dior, Prada, Balenciaga, Tag Heuer, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, to name just a handful of the brands available there. I also discovered a Tumi outlet there too.
This was a little while ago, and I had not had the opportunity to head off to Woodbury Common last time I was on the East Coast, and being that I had all the time necessary to go this time around, that I should probably make my way out. Having got up and readied myself fairly early in the morning, we had arrived, by car, at the centre just in time for opening. And it was at this point, when I decided to take a picture, then realised that I had left the camera back at the hotel, so no photos this time around sorry readers!
Woodbury Common is roughly 55 miles from the city, and it took a little under an hour to get there from the hotel. I took a car, but read somewhere that the bus return costs around $50 and apparently the return schedule is pretty good. I would budget a whole day to get through it all, and definitely do not go there on a public holiday or a weekend because apparently the lines are crazy. The driver said in peak times you can expect to wait an hour to get into the car park, let alone find a space, park and get inside.
I found it particularly funny when I saw a lot of people carting suitcases around for all the shopping, but I soon discovered why. Prada shoes, retail $850. Outlet price was $280 excluding taxes. Dior shoes, retail $900. Outlet price was $250. Dior briefcase, retail $3850. Outlet price was $1180. I also managed a Tumi Vapor suitcase that would ordinarily retail for $600, which I managed to Secure for about $320. I even saw a pair of $14,000 alligator loafers at Tom Ford reduced to $2100, but I left those there, as I didn’t fancy spending that much on shoes when I didn’t particularly like them. There were similar reductions everywhere around there.
After having become rather sick of the place, and having bought everything I could physically have carried back, I returned to the city. This took a little longer as traffic was a little heavier than it was when I had left that morning, but I sat in the back of the car, beholding the scenery with my headphones plugged in listening to music from this new artist called Flume.
When I arrived back in the city, I was feeling slightly peckish having not eaten at Woodbury Common due to there being an absence of decent looking food places. I wasn’t keen on McDonalds. The menu at Restaurant Above in the Hilton looked ordinary; so I ran across the road to the NY Times building, where in the retail stores on the ground floor lies a Dean and Deluca.
For those of you who don’t know, Dean and Deluca is a New York institution (a bit like Katz's deli) and is quite expensive. I paid $25 for a sandwich, a juice and a cupcake. Having said that, everything was magnificent.
Some expensive juice at Dean and Deluca, the price of which made me giggle a little bit:
I finished my dinner, went back to the hotel and got a bit of sleep, before getting up the next morning to go do a tour of the city, hit up Macy’s and hit up the Empire State building. Give me a minute or two to write that one
