VANITY FARE
In Milan
There's been a two-day gap this season between the end of London Fashion Week and the first really significant Milan shows. So what have all those fashionistas done? Well, you might imagine them returning briefly to the fold of their families and loved ones, popping on a massive wash (a massive black wash, that is), and chilling out between those frock assaults. But no. They've got themselves to Milan on the earliest available flight in
order to secure the best possible selections from Gucci, Prada, or Dolce & Gabbana.
You might imagine the fashion community decamps to Milan primarily because it wants to see the runway shows from Italian fashion's most famous houses. Wrong. Fashionistas come here to shop. And the city's designer showcase boutiques, which normally have so little reason
to fear for wear and tear of
their lush carpeting, can - for
this one week - barely keep abreast of demand.
It's all a little crazy. Queues form outside Gucci. Emergency deliveries will have to be shipped in pronto-pronto from the nearest factories to replenish the results of the fashion pack's scorched-earth shopping tactics at Prada. And when word is whispered around the fashion pack of a fresh handbag delivery at Dolce & Gabbana, the resulting taxi jam will stretch two blocks each side of the Via della Spiga store.
Are these people crazy? Well, yes - but exceptionally favourable exchange rates, together with the generous discounts offered by leading designers to their industry ''friends'', help detonate this determination to have it all.
Some fashionistas, however, want it all for even less. Having conspired to arrive in the city one day ahead of their colleagues, they checked in, freshened up, and headed out pretty sharpish way, way beyond the swanky shopping thoroughfares of Montenapoleone and Sant' Andrea to a famous suburban treasure trove.
Why settle for a miserable 20% discount, when Il Salvagente designer discount warehouse offers 50%, 60%, and 70% off just about every designer of whom you've ever heard? The only drawback, of course, is that they are more likely to find a hot item of current season's Prada collection in Dot Cotton's wardrobe than in this outlet. But a sharp-eyed and sample-sized fashionista may occasionally stumble across, say, a Fendi
two-piece disfigured by nothing more serious than a supermodel's footprint on the back. One editor is already explaining away exactly such a mark as evidence of her involvement in a pre-show fashionista pile-up.
No fashionista would want to be caught shopping in a designer discount outlet. So before setting out, the Salvagente bargain hunter must acquire a selection
of famous-name carrier bags from the hotel concierge into which she can repack all those cut-price indiscretions on the return leg of the expedition.
Well, in Milan there's always one's via-cred to consider.
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