OH, DEAR
Amanda Bynes can now count herself among the recent celebrity designers to shun Las Vegas. The "Hairspray" starlet has partnered with Steve & Barry's -- one of the few budget retailers that hasn't joined cyber shopping space or the shopping mecca of Vegas -- to introduce Dear By Amanda Bynes. Before Bynes, Madonna for H&M, Kate Moss for Topshop and Sarah Jessica Parker for Steve & Barry's all inadvertently turned their noses up at our city, too. They may not intend to snub us, but in distributing their namesake clothing at stores yet to arrive in Vegas, they end up doing just that.
While the launch of Dear comes as great news to those living in one of the 33 states lucky enough to have a Steve & Barry's, for us Las Vegans it's just a cruel taunt.
Dangling the trendy garments before us in adorable magazine and online ads makes us question how dear Ms. Bynes actually is. Sure, the pieces carry a certain charm, but we can get over that. It's the price tags that have us truly aching. We thought the Bitten line from Parker with all garments under $20 was hard to swallow, but this could qualify as torture. Dear doesn't have a single item over $15.
Of course, to ease the pain, we've come up with similar pieces for you to endear yourself to. And you can find all of them in local stores. We even went out of our way to find retailers with the most modest pricepoints, hoping it would soften the blow. Still, our total came to little more than twice that of Dear's prices ($104.29 vs. $46.84). You can't say we didn't try.
If our efforts don't appease your Dear desires, you'll have to travel to southern California to get your fix. Although Steve & Barry's set out to open 70 new stores in 2007, a Las Vegas launch still hasn't been announced.
