The Dallas Galleria: Shopping in Style

 

I’m not exactly DFW’s go-to guy for shopping, but I’ve lived here for almost fifteen years — so I’d <>

the furs, having been actively involved in the fur trade in my youth, but I find most of the clothing here to be outrageous in terms of style and price. Take, for example, the suit on the right in this picture.

Saks

That’s $1,450 right there, plus tax, for what appears to be an unremarkable natural/synthetic blend of some kind. It’s soft, but so are the items you can buy at more reasonable stores. What, is it made from the silk of some rare spider that lives high in the Andes and survives only long enough to spin a single tiny web before it expires? I guess I don’t understand women’s clothing, most especially why you’d pay that much for something so sheer that a single drop of wine or soda could ruin it. My whole wardobe doesn’t cost that much. But I have friend who’s a marketing guru (he’s built $300 into $100 million over the course of 20 years), and he says that products are worth what people will pay for them. I guess Saks is living proof.

Here’s another wonderfully expensive place you can visit here. Despite Truman Capote, Audrey Hepburn, and Deep Blue Something, there’s no breakfast here. Maybe you have to go to New York for that. By the way, did you know DBS and their one hit song came from the Dallas area? Straight outta Denton.

No Breakfast Here

Despite its luxury angle, the Galleria is still a great place to shop, and you don’t have to overspend if you don’t care to. They’re got a wide range of options, including some incredible toy stores, a puppet playhouse, and a Franklin Covey store. One thing the Galleria lacks, as far as I can tell, is a bookstore. The area’s premier shopping mall, and no bookstore? This really shows you what’s important to the shopping public in Dallas. Hell, I don’t think there’s even a newspaper kiosk anywhere. Hmmmph.

As I write this it’s mid-November 2007, and the mall’s already gearing up for Christmas. They’ve planted this massive four-story Christmas tree in the middle of the skating ring on the basement level. I’m glad I went this week because I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else. Okay, I admit it — I’m kind of a yokel, and I’m a little awed. Maybe that explains the sunburn on the roof of my mouth after my one trip to Manhattan.

Christmas Tree

Here’s what the tree and the rink look like from the basement level. It’s not a huge rink, but it’s a nice one. If I could skate worth a darn and wasn’t so, ahem, hefty, I might have gone for a spin.

Skating Rink

Another thing the Galleria has to offer, for those bored kids who are sick of walking back and forth in Nordstrom’s and Saks’, is a special playground. It’s not big, but it’s pretty sharp looking, and includes a variety of fanciful critters and rocks and plants made of plastic and such. Check it out.

Play Area

For those kids who prefer to play outside the lines, there are also some fun statues scattered around outside the play area, including this lioness. Looks like someone’s tamed her.

Lion Tamer

Basically, the Galleria’s a nice, big sprawling mall with plenty of room to wander around, and some nicely-situated rest areas. If you feel the urge to go shopping on your vacation and you’re in the market for a $600 purse at Nordstrom’s or one of those $1,500 jackets at Saks Fifth avenue, well, here you go. If you don’t want to spend any money but still want to feel like one of the glitterati, then this is your place. And If you just want to experience the interior of a building big enough to have its own weather, then by all means check it out. It’s no Mall of the Americas, but it’ll do.

*Some people would say I am anyway, but that’s beside the point.

Bad Behavior has blocked 613 access attempts in the last 7 days.