Field Trip: Century 21

Century 21: It is the most wonderful store in the world. It is the only appropriate place to begin our  25 Best Stores in Manhattan, now that we have one each in London and Brooklyn. Real progress there. But still: Century 21! We love it, we hate it, etc. All we can say: Missoni and Prada and billions more, new fall arrivals. Note the extremely undercover camera-phone subterfuge photos. It was all that was available to us, because the place is that undercover.

The annoying thing about Century 21, at least for our purposes here, is that it can only be experienced in person. The nearest online equivalent is Bluefly, or maybe eBay. There is no online replication. For instance, no one can push you online, or step on the back of your flip-flops so many times that you want to pluck out their hearts with your bare hands. You can, however, find $325 Marc X MJ blazers for $114, or this $500 Catherine Malandrino dress for $159. Ergo, allure. That photo really sucks. There were spies everywhere.

We went looking for a dress for our friend's wedding. Our next stop was Forever 21, or our own closet, because really, money is expensive, if you get our meaning. So we went back and forth from the floor to the dressing rooms. They have curtains now! Otherwise unexceptional.

Here is the line behind us. We almost cheesed out with a Miguelina top that was so awful we will not replicate it here. Love Miguelina, but the top was, as it was put to us by a shopper more level-headed than ourselves, "Stevie Nicks gone wrong." That is the problem with Century 21: Mistakes are made. The good news: There were plenty of other choices, like the Narciso Rodriguez and the Prada, below. Really, we have never seen so much Prada in our lives. And. All. Like half off. Really. It's too much, emotionally speaking.

We haven't even mentioned the Missoni rack[s].

In the end, though, it was a Filippa K with unbelievable detailing that won us over. $550. Marked down. To. $49.99.

We swear we have boobs, even if this photo does not show them.

For a while we stopped going to Century 21, fed up with the dressing rooms and the pushing and the sandal-stepping-on. However: $500.01 off. We are, again, its bitch.

Century 21
Now in Paramus! (As of August 10.) Our field trip took us to the main location at 22 Cortlandt Street.
(212) 227-9092