Shopping for clothes in your area

Hello!

I made this thread some time ago;
Shopping in New York but I now need to widen my search.

The deal is that I want to treat my woman with a shopping trip. The trip itself will be no longer than a weekend or maximum a week. It would be nice to be able to combine the trip so that it is not only about shopping (still mainly) but also for other forms of recreation.

From where I reside (Stockholm, Sweden) the following pricetags are grim reality;

A pair of nice jeans cost $140+ (EUR 93+)
A fancy winter jacket $410-830 (EUR 280-560)
Sweater (high quality) $110+ (EUR 75+)
Nice shoes around $97-200 (EUR 65-170)
Hiking boots $170-690 (EUR 140-470)
($=US Dollar)

My inquries:

1. Does prices in your area (country, city...) go way below that?
If yes, please answer the following, if no, skip to question 3:

2. Is your area also "tourist friendly" (most importantly, is it accessible for major flight routes from abroad)

3. Have you just recently from any part of the World where prices were insanely low and that you would like to recommend?

I am sooo very, very, very thankful for any replies, the more detailed the better.
Her birthday is in March, so there is not much time left (I have been looking for a destination for months on end and I get more and more confued over where to spend my bucks!):bnghd:

I usually do my shopping in Antwerp on "the Meir". It's the most well known shopping street, a main street and with mostly affordable shops, mostly retail stores though, like H&M. If you wander through Antwerp's smaller streets you find the expensive designer stores, righ in between the centuries old churches and museums.

prices:
A pair of nice jeans starts as low as 40 eur. Mexx or Esprit jeans are about 70 eur
A good winter jacket, depending on the store you must be able to find starting 100 eur
Sweater (high quality) 30 eur
Nice shoes : can't find good shoes under 100 eur
Hiking boots starts at 80 eur

If you shop during sales period, that would be july and January, you can cut the prices in half, even lower.


2. Is your area also "tourist friendly" (most importantly, is it accessible for major flight routes from abroad)
YES, Antwerp is tourist friendly, lot's of chinese tourists though. And since my country is that small, you can cross it in 3 hours max (depending on where you want to go). 1.5h drive to the sea or 2 h drive to the Ardennes or Brussels (shopping in Brussels is expensive btw)
There is one Airport near Antwerp, the biggest one is in Brussels.
You can go anywhere by train, or rent a car, though rental cars are expensive as well.

Let me know if you come to Antrwerp, I'll buy you guys a good Belgium beer and chocolates for the lady

If you ever get to Texas, Houston is a very popular destination for shoppers and the dollar is cheap right now and getting cheaper. You can check out the up town area and Galleria. .

It's all of the high end stores, shops and botiques but in a down to earth price area. (less than the same stores in N.Y and L.A.) More than enough to keep a shopping woman busy.

Also museums, opera,ballet, zoo, lots of artsy stuff mid town and great resturants.

The guys still have baseball football soccer hockey basketball mens clubs and more to keep them busy while your girl is putting your bank account into cardiac arrest.


If that's not enough, you can take her on a Carribean or Mexican cruise out of galveston just 45 minutes south of Houston.



[edit on 23-11-2009 by badgerprints]