The redcoats are coming! The redcoats are coming!
And more than a few of them are here to buy red coats.
Post-Christmas shopping around Manhattan has a strange tinge to it this year. SoHo is emptier than usual and Midtown doesn't have the same elbow-throwing density of humanity that it usually has. The people who are out on the streets, bags full of on-sale goodies in hand, are more likely to be European than American. Uncouth British chavs crowd around the Burberry display at Bloomingdales. Stocky teutonic types try to squeeze into tiny hipster jeans at Barney's Co-Op. The French are buying everything in sight, everywhere.
This is probably good for business. In a town where a half-gallon of milk can run $6.50 at the corner store and housing costs never seem to stabilize, let alone fall, the market for $300 jeans is probably a little more restricted for those of us who aren't cashing a bonus check from Goldman Sachs.
This can't last forever. The overwhelming majority of the stuff getting snapped up by Japanese soccer moms (Sumo moms?) and Italian college students is made somewhere else. The prices just haven't caught up with the decline in the dollar. The French Apple site lists le iPod at ten euros more than the the dollar price at U.S. stores. Factor in the 50% currency discount and there's no reason not to clear out your luggage and haul a suitcase full of iPods back to Lyon. Better yet, why not buy a Louis Vuitton suitcase at a steep discount, fill that with iPods and bring everything home?
Retailers are going to catch on to this and quick. Enjoy this while you can, rest of the world.
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