LOCAL HUMDRUM, GLOBAL GLORY

Familiarity, especially in fashion, tends to breed contempt; or, at the very least, a healthy amount of disdain.  Hence the enduring popularity of anything that can be deemed ‘limited edition’ (and which therefore requires the prospective purchaser to spend weeks stalking their prey via frantic calls and emails to weary shop assistants) and the mystique surrounding stores which are relatively humdrum on their own shores, but the stuff of dreams once they cross the Atlantic.

It happened when Topshop opened in New York and, judging by the amount of gushing press coverage at the moment, it’s set to happen again now that Anthropologie has established an outpost on Regent Street in London.  Not that I have anything against Anthropologie.  The stores have a pleasingly whimsical ambiance, and a stroll inside usually finds me lusting over something to embellish either my house or myself. 

The problem is, for me it’s an “easy to pop into, add things to my mental wish list, and wait for items to go on sale” store - not the inaccessible stuff of dreams and feverish anxiety.  Though, with a three storey “living” wall of plants and a capsule collection by Eley Kishimoto, this new store may induce the odd daydream.