Dallas Gets Gilt

The Gilt Groupe, like other flash-sale online fashion retailers, is nearly four years old. Thanks to its deep-discounts, luxury and bargains finally came together for online shoppers. Yet now, for me anyway, the glitter has faded somewhat. The initial excitement began to subside after the same merchandising appeared many times in many different sales-- and worst of all on many occasions the only one that you want is sold out for your size.

Gilt City, on the other hand, provides a different business model with location-based deals. Unlike Groupon, where shoppers buy deep discount coupon but can redeem it within a fairly large time range, Gilt City hosts events that only happen at certain time at a specific venue. Groupon users go to restaurants to dine themselves, mixed with other customers who may pay twice as much as they do for the same meal. Yet at Gilt City, those events are exclusive and voucher-only. Everyone mingles together, like a party.

Gilt City has finally arrived in Dallas. Although the official launch date is in August, it has assembled quite some impressive events to court Dallas savvy shoppers. Starting this week, each day features a different event from free movie screenings (before the opening date) to restaurant events. Almost all events have sold out.

Yesterday, we stopped at Billy Reid store, recently relocated from North Park Mall to Highland Park Village, where the Gilt City was hosting an exclusive member-only event with small bites and gift cards.

The store is not big-- at least not as big as it used to be in North Park Mall. But with Victorian chairs, taxidermy and old photos, it has an unpretentious charm like an old Southern house. Only 50 members were lucky enough to get the voucher - a not-surprising result from an online store which is famous to create the buzz by starting each sale of limited items at noon time each day.

A local event planning company was charged with food and spirits. Small bites are certainly an understatement in Texas where everything is big. Deviled eggs and mini cherry pies pleased those who count calories of each meal while macaroni and pulled pork on biscuits helped those who would spend the next two hours (from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.) checking every rack in the store.

Alcohol can help spur purchases and bourbon and spiked iced tea sufficed in this category. The food, wine and music (there was also a guitar singer) made one almost feel it was not a sale event, but some summer party at an old friend’s house.

For this particular event, it cost 15 dollars to get the voucher. A generous one-hundred-dollar (virtual) gift card was given to each attending member. As one can expect, the participants are young and many speak foreign languages. Shoes seem popular so do accessories such as ties and belts. (For the pricing, the boutique store is on par with the rest of the stores in the Highland Park Village, so that it was not difficult at all to spend the entire amount of money on the gift card.

It should also be noted that Billy Reid is mainly a men's clothing store. There was only one rack of women clothes, while the rest of the store is devoted to men's staples: shirts, jackets and shoes. Thus it was quite amusing to see the shopping difference between single bachelors and married couples. It reminded me that a friend of mine lamented Dallas women are too obsessed with their looks.

Apparently, they are also obsessed with their husbands’ looks.