EWP Goes to the Fanciest Mall Ever

No vacay anywhere is complete without a day of shopping. It's been my rule since ever since I can remember. With three daughters and years of shopping trips, my dad can't set foot in a mall without breaking out in hives. But now the tradition has been passed on to Mr. EWP and he's actually doing quite well with it. He did the shopping research all on his own. He googled "Christian Louboutin" and "Chloe" and found some places to shop. I was seriously impressed that A) that he did the shopping planning on his own, and B) that he even knew what Chloe was. AND he said I could buy anything I wanted. Anything. I was very excited.

First stop: The Miami Design District. I was really excited. I always think other big cities have something fun like Michigan Ave. where it's just lines of nice shops and people wandering in and out.Well, um, the Miami Design District was not like that. It was deserted, in the middle of a gorgeous Saturday! And the whole area was kind of warehousey and not cute. There'd be one nice store I'd consider shopping in, and then a bunch of faucet and plumbing stores. It was SO WEIRD.

But they did have this store. My mecca. My home. I love you, Christian!

I was hoping to try on these shoes that I'd been coveting for a while, but they didn't carry them.

But they did have these adorably Parisian be-bowed, polka-dotted heels.

Funny story. I tried these on and Mr. EWP goes, "the heel's kinda low" and the saleswoman balks and goes, "they're four inches!" hahahhaha. I guess I've conditioned him to really ridiculous heel heights. I was wearing 6 inchers this day.

As cute as I thought they were, and as much as I could see me spending the whole summer in them, I just didn't think they were as cute as the piped canvas mary jane peep-toes. So I said goodbye.

From there we wandered over to Marni where I learned a very important lesson: never ever go to a store starved for customers wearing shoes from that store. OMG, once those 2 sales associates saw my shoes, they were tripping over themselves to show me everything in their store. Including stuff in the back they hadn't put out yet! They were all, we got a new collection, would you like to see it? No, I would not, people. You're scaring me.

It was high time to leave the Design District. So we crossed the bridge and headed over to what turned out to be the fanciest mall I've ever been to.

Sure I've been to nice shopping places, but none like this. It was discerning, it was high class.

Sure there were trees like other malls

And the fish were pretty cute.

But it was the stores that got me. There was no Banana or Club Monaco to be seen. The upstairs were the "lowly" stores - Tory Burch, Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs. Things I can manage to swing in the budget.

But downstairs, wowee, downstairs was something else.

Hello, Carolina.

And Lanvin! I don't believe I've seen a Lanvin in person before. Not that I went in, I didn't feel worthy.

I was on a handbag hunt. I marched into Chloe looking for the bag I saw back in Chicago, but they didn't carry it. So we wandered to some other stores and looked at bags. Some had comical prices ($3,000??? WHAT?) and others were maybe buyable.

I wandered into Valentino to check out their rosette bags that I totally love. And the Valentino clerk totally did a once over of my bag and turned up his little nose at me. I wanted to be like, "It's Kate Spade, not Guess, dude!" And I wanted to inform him that he worked in a store. But I didn't.

For better or for worse, the people at Dior gave me much better service. Well, better as in they were attentive, not that they actually understood anything I was saying. I went in and said I wanted a plain, basic bag. I like my bags pretty basic. And the Dior woman took me to a bag that had bulky chains weaved through. In what world does "plan and basic" mean "bulky chains"?? And then, oh my and then, she brought me a bag with an across the body shoulder strap. I tried to smile politely, but I was really just trying not to vomit. Because one cannot vomit in Dior. But it was tough, people. It was tough. Across the body shoulder strap?? Who are these people?

So, even though I had the green light from my husband, nothing was purchased that day. Guess I really just love my Chicago shopping.