By Faith Hope Consolo
Chairman, Retail Leasing and Sales Division
Prudential Douglas Elliman

In New York City, replicas of the world’s most famed shopping districts are right at your doorstep. Manhattan gives you Paris’s Champs Elysees with Fifth Avenue and the Place Vendôme on 57th Street; you can experience London’s Bond Street on Madison Avenue. Why make the trip from Milan’s Via Montenapoleone to Rome’s Via Condotti when the jaunt from SoHo to the Meatpacking District is so brief? Just south, the Financial District offers shopping just like Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. With brilliant bijou boutiques opening alongside magnificent retail royalty, leave trips to Europe and Asia for sightseeing and do your shopping right here in New York!

On Fifth Avenue, Bulgari will unveil an expanded and newly renovated boutique on the corner of 57th Street at 730 Fifth Avenue. Just Cavalli, Roberto Cavalli’s younger diffusion line, is launching its first store at 665 Fifth Avenue, next to St. John. A. Testoni, fashion footwear and apparel for the quality-obsessed, relocated to the posh Sherry Netherland locale at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, across from the new Shops at the Plaza. Gucci will open its largest and most highly anticipated store, spanning three levels at the northeast corner of 56th Street in Trump Tower.

On Madison Avenue, Mulberry has landed from London at number 605. Tiffany will have a shop on the Avenue at 725 Madison, the former home of Chopard, who is in turn moving to a larger space on the southeast corner of 63rd Street, 709 Madison. French designer Louis Feraud is taking over the Stephane Kelian shop at 717 Madison Avenue. Leviev will bring their extraordinary diamonds to the first U.S. shop, 698 Madison Avenue, at 62nd Street. Asprey of London will finally have a permanent home at 855 Madison Avenue next door to the first ever Tom Ford boutique, moving Yves St Laurent over to the coveted southeast corner of 71st Street.

Shoppers in the know are well aware that Fifth and Madison are not the only neighborhoods offering fabulous shopping. Fashion has flourished in SoHo, Meatpacking, Chelsea and beyond.
On 57th Street, across from the Four Seasons Hotel, old-world Italian craftsmanship is at its best with Buccellati, whose renovated palace has reopened. Parisian fashion house Christian LaCroix will debut next door to Franck Muller and Jacob the Jeweler. Manfredi timepieces and exquisite Italian designs is to be perfectly positioned at 470 Park Avenue.

In Soho, Vera Wang’s newest creation “purple label” will grace 158 Mercer Street, while Michael Kors brings his new lifestyle store to 101 Prince Street.
Over In the Meatpacking District, Yohji Yamamoto, hailing from Japan, will make his mark at One Gansevoort Street.

In the Financial District, the new area for “luxe”, Tiffany & Co. will make an entrance at 37 Wall Street in fall 2007, joining Hermès, set to open at 15 Broad Street in spring 2007.

Visitors from all over the world, residents from all over the country and Manhattanites all thrive on the wide array of en vogue designers, courtiers, unique accessories and diamonds of all shapes, sizes and colors. Come to Our City for Shopaholics!