Come for the cheap crap. Stay for the being treated like a criminal at the border.
Shopping is good with euros to spend
Crain's, Aug. 18, 2008
Back home in Italy, Stefano Fante, 51, is a prudent consumer, buying just what he needs and never shopping while on vacation. But a $600 chocolate-brown leather jacket beckoned from the racks at the Cole-Haan store on Michigan Avenue.
Mr. Fante, an attorney from Padua, slipped it on, took a few turns in front of the mirror and then conferred with his wife Marilisa, 45, also an attorney, and their 13-year-old son, Tommaso. After some lively deliberation, he put the jacket back on the rack and decided to keep looking.
Money definitely was not the issue. Mr. Fante, like many European tourists in Chicago, can afford to give in to temptation these days. Indeed, he bought an even pricier jacket a few doors down, splurging on a $950 version — about two-thirds what it would've cost him at home — at Johnston & Murphy.
With 1 euro hovering between $1.50 and $1.60 this summer, Michigan Avenue seems like one big clearance bin to Europeans, who are snapping up iPods, laptops, cameras and American clothing brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, plus Chicago Bulls merchandise.
. . .
"We came here because of the strong euro," Mr. Fante said. "It's great for us. The first time I came to the U.S. was more than 20 years ago, in 1983, and I couldn't buy anything. Everything was impossible, too expensive. We find the USA for us is now cheap, so we buy."
Digging through shelves of discounted T-shirts were Shane Mullally, 22, and Damian Kelly, 20, two Irishmen here for the summer at the invitation of a local hurling club. Hurling is a native sport of Ireland, a cross between baseball and lacrosse (yeah - suuure it is - ed.).
"These $20 shirts would easily cost double in Ireland," Mr. Mullally pointed out, walking to the dressing room with armfuls of clothes...
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2 comments:
I actually posted this before I read Sarge's post from yesterday. Puzzling... sad... really puzzling...
Irish guys - clueless as always. They came here to save on $20 t-shirts? At least the Italian guy was trying to buy something where the savings might have paid for the entire trip, but these morons? No wonder the world is going into recession mode - folks ain't being rational. That's why (almost) every single economic theory and model ever never seems to apply to this world - because they assume we're smart, but turns out we're brain dead. Bob.
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