This month was all about New York. First, the preparation, then the actual trip, and finally, the depressing homecoming and constant “this time last week I was in New York” daydreaming.
New York is one of my (if not THE) favorite cities in the whole world. I feel like people find it either too overwhelming or hopelessly and eternally fall in love with it.
I’m definitely in the second camp. It was decided in mere minutes 10 years ago when I first stepped out of a bus and set my sights on the city. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit several times, but it never ever gets old.
New York for me is first and foremost an experience. It has such a special vibe, from the cobbled streets and iron cast fire escapes of SoHo, the vast beauty of Central Park, the vibrant energy of Times Square, the cool houses of Brooklyn to the museums, culture, street art, Broadway, food, the iconic movie and book scenes, the underworld of the NYC metro.
The list could go on forever.
But New York is also a shopping mecca, there’s no need to sugarcoat it. And as I wrote in this post, I like setting some time aside for shopping when I’m traveling. I actually do most of my shopping when I’m abroad, which doesn’t mean that it’s a priority, but I do prepare for it. I like finding new places or things I could never buy at home and getting them on awesome trips just make them even more special.
So it was never a question of whether I would shop in New York, the question was how much?
Preparation
I always spend time on preparing for my trips abroad. While I do enjoy being spontaneous and just wandering around, I also wanna maximize my trips and that includes a lot of googling and researching cool places and secret spots. I also like investigating the shopping options as well, like whether there are shops I don’t usually have access to.
In case of New York, I was fairly familiar with the shopping options, so I focused on making shopping plans instead. I always have a seasonal style wishlist that I rarely deter from, so that was covered, but I also wanted to prepare for Sephora to avoid being overwhelmed and buying everything on the spot. I made a pledge not to buy anything I could at Europe, researched the ingredients, and made a preliminary shopping list to retain focus.
This wasn’t very successful, because my shopping list ended up over $500, which I deemed too much, so I knew I would still need to make some difficult decisions on the spot.
Let’s see, how it all went.
Day 1
I make the obligatory rounds around the Munich Duty-free shop, but apart from some very overpriced Swiss chocolates, nothing really tempts me. In the end, the chocolates stay in Germany as well. The arrival is glorious, New York is just as awesome as I remembered, all I wanna do is just walk around even half-sleeping, so I don’t even glance at the shops.
Day 2
We start at Nolita (excellent brunch and coffee places at basically every corner) then slowly stroll over to SoHo and then Tribeca. SoHo is a more dangerous territory as it’s full of cool shops, but I’m still high on the energy of the city and feel so good about being back here, that I don’t wanna spend precious time indoors at shops. So we walk. A lot.
At the afternoon we’re meeting a friend at the Financial District, who’s a little late and after some wandering around I found myself at Century 21. It’s a designer outlet store that I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with. There are some gems in there, but you really have to take the time to look around (and fight the crowd) and I quickly lose patience. I do find a coat/sweater hybrid that passes the immediate love/good usability/great material/good price test, so it comes home with me. I debate for some time about a Marc Jacob bag but I decide at the end that I have doubts whether I would really make a good use out of it, so I leave it.
We walk back with my friend towards NYU when a small design shop catches my eye. I find a leather card holder that’s as close to the Chanel one that has been on my wishlist for years as it can get, for a fraction of the price, so I buy it.
The last temptation of the day comes at Union Square at Strand Bookstore. Book shopping is one of my weaknesses and this bookstore is full of temptations. I manage to limit my shopping to two books and then head to dinner.
Summary: I was very intentional and quite satisfied with my purchases though shopping was not among the daily program plans. But I wanna refrain from more shopping at least for a couple of days.
Day 3
We set out for breakfast but quickly stop at CVS, because my fiancé needs some cough drops. I manage to behave until I spy the Essie counter. Deep down I know what’s going to happen even though it shouldn’t. I have 38 nail polishes at home, but those bastards always bring out new shades and even though the shade differences are marginal I’m unable to refrain myself from buying one. I’m easy on myself, though – the fact that I only buy one is considered a success in my case (lol at the self-lies – it was totally unnecessary). The rest of the day is uneventful from a shopping point of view – amazing in all other aspects.
Day 4
Another long and beautiful day strolling around, taking in the sights, food (lots of food!). I have a quick run through Saks, Barneys, and Bloomingdale’s, because I’m looking for a particular bra, but I don’t find it anywhere and I’m not tempted by $2,000 chiffon dresses and Gucci bags, so I make these trips very quick.
I also have a meeting at Times Square and spend 20 minutes sitting and waiting outside the gigantic Sephora store without going in.
I’m a hero.
Day 5
The weather gods are still with us and we walk through the High Line in beautiful sunny weather. We spend the whole day with friends, which is awesome, but also means that the shopping temptation is increasing. There are a lot of shops in the neighborhood, I have a girlfriend there and her boyfriend, which means that the girls and boys can pair up to do their respective thing – shopping for girls, waiting patiently for boys (I really do not want to strengthen the cliché gender stereotype thing, but in this case, it covers the truth).
The Chelsea Food Market is awesome and for some reason has an Elisabeth and James pop-up discount store. I pray I don’t find the bag I bought a couple of months earlier here heavily discounted because then I’ll be very, very frustrated.
Thankfully, it’s not there. Nothing else really interests me, so we move on to an evening of rooftops first in Manhattan, then at a party in Brooklyn.
See, tomorrow is the designated shopping day, so it’s basically calm before the storm.
Day 6
The weather is a little gloomier, we wanna have a mellower day, and as I said, it’s the preplanned shopping time. It’s also the day of the big three: Fashion, Sephora, and Whole Foods. And it’s a day full of interesting intentional shopping lessons for me.
+ Fashion: A+ behavior from me. I only buy one coat and it’s perfect. You know when you have something in your mind and you find it in the perfect size, color, fit, material and price. It makes me so happy and satisfied, I don’t even need anything else. Once again I realize that I’m in a good place when it comes to my wardrobe, style, and clothes shopping. I really only buy the perfect items, I’m able to be realistic about what I love, need, and will use, and I no longer have an urge to carry around 20 different bags like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman in order to feel like I completed a good shopping day.
+ Whole Foods: This may sound strange, but Whole Foods is one of THE things I miss the most from my old life in the US. Nothing comes close to it at home and I can spend hours just strolling around from aisle to aisle. This does not carry over into shopping thankfully, and 5 boxes of granola are all the damage I do.
+ Sephora: Sigh. If you’re as obsessed about skincare as I am, there’s absolutely no need to explain the beauty and temptations of Sephora. If not, you can never imagine it. I manage to curb my pre-planned shopping list to a half, and that’s a good thing. (Trick: put everything into your basket, add up the prices, be mortified, and do some reverse shopping until only the necessities remain). I also manage to stick to my decision of not buying anything I can get in Europe. Did I spend a lot of money? Probably yes. Am I happy with everything that I got and managed to not cross the self-imposed overspending line? Yes.
Day 7
The last full day. While overall I’m quite satisfied with the amount and quality of shopping I’ve done so far, I make one mistake today. I forgot a gift for a friend from Sephora and I go back (did I really forget it? or was it my evil, Sephora-obsessed subconscious playing a trick on me?).
Never go back for a second round. It’s dangerous because you trick your mind into separating the costs.
I find an Herbivore counter that wasn’t in the previous one, so I end up buying another moisturizer. It’s gorgeous, but this is probably the one purchase I didn’t need to make. But I manage to pull myself together and put back some other things, so that’s it.
The last round of shopping is strictly about gifts at the Moma Design Store so it doesn’t really count.
Conclusions
Overall, I’m quite satisfied with how I fared in this trip from a shopping point of view. I was reinforced in my belief that I became a lot more intentional when it comes to shopping, especially when it comes to clothes. I know my style, I really focus on quality vs. quantity, I don’t sacrifice my usefulness/love criteria, I don’t get tempted by good-priced, but probably unnecessary purchases.
Honestly, it’s a good feeling.
Beauty remains one of my weak points, but I’m a lot better (and stricter) compared to a couple of years ago. It’s probably still an area I need to focus on and curb my spending a little bit more, but I like to remain positive and view it as a progress, not as a failure.
I don’t have buyer’s guilt at all, which is also great.
But most importantly, even though I deliberately focused on the shopping part of the trip in this post, the main focus was not shopping, at all. And it’s so important to emphasize. I can honestly say, even if I had bought nothing at all, this trip would have been just as perfect (the new things are just the added bonuses).
It’s easy to get tempted by shiny new stuff when we travel, especially in a city so stylish and full of beautiful things as New York. But as cliché, as it may sound, the experiences matter so much more.
p.s.: My 5 tips for intentional shopping when you’re traveling
+ Prepare a shopping list
+ Set a budget or some spending criteria
+ Designate a shopping day (and preferably make it the last day of the trip)
+ Don’t go back to a store a second time
+ Concentrate on the experiences – shopping is not the destination
