Top Shop opens in N.Y. -- clear your schedule

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I tried. I really, really tried to stand in line and wait for Top Shop’s first U.S. retail store to open on a corner of lower Manhattan, but the crowd who had been standing on the sidewalk since dawn stretched down the block, around the corner and three long New York City blocks down the next street.

“I just got here five minutes ago,” said Laura, a blogger who stood at the very end of line -- mind you this was at 10 a.m., and the store didn’t open until 11 a.m. “And I plan to stand here for as long as it takes it to get inside.”

I’m sure she waited for awhile, so it’s a good thing that there was plenty of sustenance for those who had been there for hours. Girls dressed in bowler hats and neck scarves bearing the Union Jack handed out Top Shop canvas tote bags and chocolate chip cookies. Other people passed trays of cups filled with frozen yogurt and fruit. Everyone was buzzing with excitement, whether they were at the front near the photographer risers or the back where a guaranteed entrance just didn’t seem realistic.

Had I had a five- to seven-hour window of time, I’d have gladly waited in order to purchase a pair of $140 cage heels or denim hot shorts from the Kate Moss for Top Shop line, but I didn’t. Thank goodness there’s the online option -- there are no crowds, no waiting and I can shop with a glass of wine from the comfort of my couch.

-- Melissa Magsaysay

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Photos of Top Shop New York on opening day, April 2, 2009. Credit: Melissa Magsaysay.