Yesterday, we were stunned to hear of the lovely Ivanka Trump's quick trip to regular-people-land (which involved staying at the Quality Inn and munching on Little Caesar's), but today we've learned that girlfriend is back to doing what she does best: hawking her father's crap.
Ivanka Trump, who visited the Windy City recently to show her fall jewelry collection at J.Mendel's Michigan Avenue boutique, didn't miss the opportunity to promote (albeit graciously) the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. The statuesque blonde, who wore her own diamond tassel earrings, mentioned that while in Chicago she stayed at the hotel, received several spa treatments that day and dined for both lunch and dinner at the hotel's restaurant Sixteen, where she enjoys the admittedly rich porcini ravioli.
How sweet of her to plug her dad's businesses! And she was rewarded nicely for it, too: Ivanka's getting a bit of retail space in the hotel to open up a boutique for her jewelry line.
While money Mommy and Daddy enjoy some alone time in the cabanas at the Mandalay Bay, the teenyboppers can have their own private fun with the family charge card at the Shops at Mandalay Place.
Next Friday the 13th (ooh ominous!), the LA-based "specialty store chain for trendsetting young adults" Metropark will join Mandalay's other teen-preen shops like Urban Outfitters and Fornarina.
Hotels are slowly moving beyond the bar, nightclub and restaurant trend to add some hip retail spaces in their properties. Of course, this is nothing new as some hotels have been doing this already for a long time. But what is news is the report of a Louis Vuitton store opening inside the JW Marriott Bucharest Hotel.
The store will open in June and offer customers the standard LV leather goods as well as the opportunity to design their own travel trunk based on their "requirements and taste." Hmmm...Marriott we smell a package!
As for why LV would open in a Marriott, international senior VP for LV said :
"We looked on Calea Victoriei and on other boulevards in Bucharest but chose the Marriott because it is a visually safe and controlled environment, where you know who your neighbours are and do not risk having a sex shop open next door.
Word. Who else is selling what and where? Here's a short list:
· The Beverly Wilshire Hotel: The Pretty Woman hotel has added the fine jewelry brand Avakian to its retail presence. Oh if only Julia and Richard were there now. [WWD]
· The Plaza: The Plaza will get mobile phone store Vertu. [WWD]
· Waldorf-Astoria Collection Sarasota: The upcoming hotel just announced it will have a Guerlain spa and along with that a chance to purchase all the Guerlain goodies you are suckered into believing your skin will need. · The Standard Hotel NYC: Ok, so the tentatively planned Barneys New York in the Meat Packing District isn't exactly located inside the new Standard, but it will be one block away. [Racked]
The Setai hotel has always been fashion-forward...er maybe not. But since its opening in 2005, the hotel has definitely established itself as an extravagant luxury hotel.
For instance, when Madonna stayed there in 2006, she stayed in the Penthouse suite but we have no idea what that must cost because the Setai doesn't publish those rates. (Meaning, if you have to ask, you can't afford.)
Also this past New Year's Eve, the Setai had a ticket price of $1,000 for cocktails, a five-course dinner and a performance by Jennifer Hudson.
So it's only fitting that the kind of boutique that open inside the Setai is that of British luxury goods firms, Asprey. WWD reports:
This, the firm's third U.S. store, will offer jewelry, silver, gift items and exotic leather goods. Prices in the store range from $160 for small leather goods or key chains to $37,000 for a purple crocodile bar set with sterling silver and crystal martini glasses.
So a $160 a key chain might be the only cheap way to experience the Setai as rooms there are going for $1,220 a night.
We have a sneaking feeling that more and more hotels will start to do away with their simple sundries-only gift shops and start making space for specialized gift shops.
Take for instance the jewelry store at the Loews Santa Monica which is called 1700 Ocean. The Jewelry Weblog went inside the shop and found not even this to be a regular old jewelry store, as evidence by the mission statement.
It is 1700 Ocean's, Debra Savage, Earl Allen and all employees' mission to provide every customer either in our store or on our website with absolute best quality jewelry and gemstones available on the market.
The products designed by us or artists we choose to represent will be brought to you via a visible supply chain. In other words we will not, or can not support anyone or company who takes advantage ecologically, economically or inhumanely to bring their products to market.
Perhaps there is an opportunity for this store within the new "1" Hotels?
The trendy boutique store Annie O. inside THOR has just opened and the Village Voice peeked inside to see what's there.
First up, $120 strand of pearls wrapped in cashmere, multi-strand brass hoop earrings for $57.50 and then some pricey jewelry such as a centipede choker with a diamond for $2,640.
The paper also fills us in on what it looks like from the street and not if you were in the hotel.
From the outside, the shop looks like a glowing light box, weirdly modern for a place located right under a decrepit nail salon.
But once you realize that the store is connnected to the hotel, (there's a door that lets shoppers right into the bar) the artsy display of cigarettes, travel-sized packages of Immodium AD and tiny toothbrushes, totally makes sense.
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by Jenna
The trendy boutique store 
