NY part 1: Shops to visit on 5th avenue

I am back again in Europe from holidays in New York. It was my first visit to the "big apple" and I found the town amazing - so many things to do and see, so little time.

I want to share with you my shopping experience from New York, which will be a series of blogs recommending shops as well as sharing with you what I actually bought there.

This first blog in the series will show you different recommendable shops on the main street, 5th avenue in NY.


5th avenue is known for its exclusive designer shops and the fact that this is very the stars are often spotted shopping. Nevertheless, lately also many high street shops have found there way to 5ht avenue, which means that there are shopping possibilities for everybody.

On the avenue you can find European high street shops H&M and Zara, but I prefer mentioning the typical American shops instead. Also worth mentioning is that in the end of June there are sales almost everywhere, which means that you can get more for less (recommendable time of year for travelling to NY). Especially the high street shops they mark down their products and then they would add an additional discount on the already discounted products.

The first shop which I would recommend a visit to is Abercrombie & Fitch - not so much for the clothes but for the experience.





The shop assistant are all models, male and female! When entering the shop, you get offered to get a polaroid picture taken with one of the models (me and a friend of mine above), which you then get for free as a pretty souvenir. And it continues inside, where there is laud party music and the beautiful models/sales assistant standing around, some half dancing, other smiling friendly to you while asking if you need any help. Not use to getting this much attention from that good looking men, you find your self almost walking around blushing while trying to concentrate on the clothes.
The clothes on the other hand are quite normal/basic "American style" clothes. You will find shirts, tops, short flowery skirts and dresses - in all kind of colours. Not very fashion forward as many of the dresses were the typical all in one skirt plus top dress, and the flowery skirts look like something you could find in H&M. Nevertheless, it is not cheap, the dresses and skirts cost around 50-70 dollars and the shirts are around 50-60 dollars. So I had a look and continued my trip down 5th avenue.

Other typical American shops, which you will find on 5ht avenue and everywhere else are: American Eagle Oufitters, Banana Republic and Gap. All okay shops but all a bit too basic (boring) for my taste (you will see a lot of jeans and tops/shirts in different colours and forms).

If you are a bit tech-neard, have a look in the Apple store. You should think they would had a very upbeat design store, but I have to say that the design is more practical than cool, as you can try all their product on the many wood tables around the big room.
We went by the shop the same day as they released the new Iphone 4 and even though they opened the sales at 7 o´clock in the morning, there were still huge queues in the afternoon and reporters from various TV channels.





Another shop definitely worth visiting is Juicy Couture. Here you will find great decoration, cute accessories and pricey clothes.





If you have a child inside of you or you still think barbie dolls are cool, I have to recommend a visit to the amazing toy store FAO Swartz (next to the Apple store). Here you will find everything for small (and big) children, including a Barbie catwalk, the piano from the Big movie and real sized Chubaka (from Starwars) made out of Lego.





Further down the avenue I also passed this window...


There are many more shops to visit, some affordable others not so much, but going to NY you have to visit the avenue.

My next blog will be about shopping in Soho, also a very recommendable part of the city to see!