Critical Shopping

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It looks like Cintra Wilson spent some time in San Francisco recently, because today's Critical Shopper column takes a look at Wilkes Bashford. The shop, she says, deals in styles that "don't make a whole lot of sense outside of the dowdy head-space of the old-money society bubble." There is, however, a full bar on every floor, and we'd like to go on record as recommending that all stores adopt that business model. Wilkes Bashford is in the unenviable position of being a West Coast institution that recently had to be bailed out by an East Coast company, but they seem to have left the store's persona intact. That's probably a good idea, because as Wilson says: "The soul of Wilkes Bashford still belongs to Wilkes Bashford." [NYT]