but there is an obvious dearth of visitors carrying
Within minutes of entering Crystals, the new super luxe shopping complex at CityCenter, Bob and Elayne Kirkwood tourists from Chilliwack, Canada have already made a couple of telling observations.
"There's no McDonald's," Bob says. "No Wal Mart, either."
"It's a good place to stand outside and look inside," she notes, peering through the window of Swiss jeweler De Grisogono. Her impression is amplified when she discovers that the diamond and emerald necklace atop a revolving pedestal on the other side of the glass is priced at $777,000.
"Wow!" is all she can say before moving on to the next store or, more accurately, the next window.
A couple of weeks after its opening in early December, Crystals is attracting plenty of window shoppers like the Kirkwoods. But there is an obvious dearth of visitors carrying 1:1 replica handbags shopping bags bearing the names of such upscale retailers as Roberto Cavalli and Carolina Herrera. After all, this isn't the Champs lyses, the Via Montenapoleone or Fifth Avenue. This is Las Vegas Boulevard, a street much better known for flashy casinos than opulent boutiques.
replica louis vuitton bags But now, in time to welcome replica louis vuitton bags from china the revelers who flock to Vegas for New Year's, there's Fake Louis Vuitton Replica Bags a new option in town.
"There's a lot of people like my friends, for instance that don't like coming here because they think cheap replica handbags it's all about themed gambling houses," notes Michael Louve of Santa Cruz, who visits Vegas two or three times a year. "This offers something, I think, completely different."
"Completely different" doesn't even begin to explain Crystals, which its developers prefer to call 1:1 replica handbags a "shopping and entertainment district" instead of a "mall."
Regardless, the development has indelibly changed the landscape of the Strip, both literally and figuratively.
"The architecture is just incredible," Louve says. "The design is unbelievable."
Indeed, the bold, multifaceted facade beckons; indoors, the visual delights replica louis vuitton continue. Guests are greeted just inside the front doors high quality designer replica handbags by ever evolving shafts of ice that rise from the floor and are illuminated by colored lights. Farther along, visitors admire a floral carpet before pulling out their cellphones to snap pictures of playful waterspouts whirling inside tall glass columns.
At its core, though, Crystals isn't about flowers or fountains. It's about shopping serious shopping. The kind where the adage, "If you have to ask how much it costs... " quickly springs to mind.
The shopkeepers appear amused when someone does pose the question.
"It's not replica louis vuitton handbags expensive. It's 36 or 38," says Giovanni Mattera, De Grisogono's vice president, as he displays a one of a kind gold watch encrusted with diamonds.
No, the store manager cheap louis vuitton bags from china corrects his boss, it's not priced at 36 or 38. It's 41. And that's not 41 hundred that's 41 thousand.
"Our aaa replica designer handbags clientele are people who are looking for something unique and precious. location, on Madison Avenue in New York. However, the jeweler is far from the only high end retailer drawn to Las Vegas through Crystals.
Las Vegas "is a leisure place where people want to forget about normal life for the period they're here," says Yves Carcelle, chief executive of Louis Vuitton. "They want to live another life. They want to enjoy."
With 14,000 square feet on three levels, Vuitton's new location is more than three times the size of its store in the Forum Shops at Caesars. It's the company's largest store in North America and among the five biggest in the world.
"We needed one place which would represent completely the brand," Carcelle says. In addition to its trademark bags, the store stocks ready to wear clothing for both men and women, accessories and jewelry. A "casino trunk" a replica of an old steamer trunk brimming with various gaming necessities rotates inside a glass enclosure on the mezzanine. One of only two made (the other is in the Macau store), the trunk retails for $107,000.
Carcelle and other executives at the high end retailers said that while they aren't immune to the recession, they continue to fare relatively well. News and World Report study as being among the most profitable shopping centers in the country and it remains at 100% occupancy despite the recession.
Antonio De Matteis, the chief executive of Kiton, who has flown in from Italy to open his second store in America, believes that "price is not so important."
"Much more important is the quality of the product," he continues, obviously echoing the sentiment of his well heeled customers who don't balk at spending $3,000 for a pair of men's brown leather slip on shoes.
To the untrained eye, they look like a pair of penny loafers. But, as De Matteis explains, Kiton makes only about seven pairs of shoes a day fewer than 2,000 pairs a year and those are distributed among its shops throughout the world.
With their roots mainly in Europe, the fashions at Crystals bear a distinctly foreign flair.
"It is a little more eccentric and eclectic," says Cliff Hunt, head of retail and merchandising for British clothier Paul Smith. "It's more detailed and a little bolder in color.
"We find in America that there's a great core customer that 'gets' what we do and appreciates what we do. But there's [also] that customer that often says, 'I couldn't possibly wear that myself.' ".
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