Spacious aisles make it easy for shoe lovers to roam at the 15,000-square-foot StyleSense store in Vaughan Mills, which opened last month.
Vaughan
October 04, 2008 12:05 AM
Keely Grasser
Shoes, shoes and more shoes.
(And bags, scarves, sunglasses and more).
That’s what you’ll find at StyleSense: Shoes and Accessories, the new resident at Vaughan Mills and the new shoe and accessory king of the city.
StyleSense promotes an “unparalleled selection of brand name and designer footwear at incredible value,” according to releases trumpeting the store’s Sept. 4 opening.
The Vaughan Mills location and an Oakville store, opened simultaneously, are the first of the super-shoe-stores in Canada.
“It’s a 15,000-square-foot shoe lover’s heaven,” StyleSense spokesperson Shannon Johnson said.
Yes, 15,000 feet. That’s like having a selection of shoes and other goodies filling about eight average Canadian houses.
So what will you find in this museum-sized collection?
First of all, whatever you’re in the market for, it’s pretty easy to find its general location, despite the spacious store.
Shoes are divided into subsections: the women’s department has a dress shoe section, where you can find your dressy flats and your sky-high pumps, a casual section, where you’ll spy weekend kicks, hipster sneakers and some athletic trainers, and a boot section, which has everything from office standards to fashionable booties to frigid-weather fighters.
Customers walk through spacious aisles, with shoes displayed at eye level and boxes stored underneath.
There’s also a similarly arranged men’s and children’s section.
StyleSense carries women’s shoes in sizes 5 to 10, men’s in sizes 7 to 14, children’s in sizes 11 to 6 and babies’ in sizes 0 to 10.
Besides the shoe sections, there is also areas of the store dedicated to wallets, scarves, hosiery, luggage, weekender bags, briefcases and more.
No accessory store would be complete without a bag section, which is vast at StyleSense.
But for fashionistas, the important issue isn’t the layout. It’s what labels are available and for how much.
StyleSense, like Winners, another branch of the company that owns the store, has an ever-changing selection of brands, styles, colours and such.
That means you can’t be guaranteed that a certain brand or style will be in stock.
However, The Vaughan Citizen took a peek at StyleSense’s inventory this week.
The first thing we would like to point out is the definition of “incredible value” with which you must walk into StyleSense.
Although there are some rock-bottom prices throughout the store, some of the tags will still cause a slight jolt to penny-pinching customers.
However, it is great value when you consider some of the luxe items to which the price tags are attached.
On the racks that day were shoes from Pucci, Christian Lacroix and Givenchy, both in the couple-hundred-bucks-and-up range. There was also a decent selection of Michael Kors’ shoes and other it-labels like Marc Jacobs and Kate Spade available.
The $50 to $100-ish range offers a huge selection of mid-level designer shoes. That day, offerings included BCBG, Kenneth Cole and Guess. There were many trendy sneakers to be found on our trip at that price level, including an impressive collection of Diesel sneakers.
Pickings for under $50 weren’t as prevalent and included brands often on Winners’ store shelves. On the plus side, they are affordable brands like Rocket Dog, Steve Madden and Unlisted, who make shoes easy on the budget but high on the trendiness scale.
Variance in the price tags of bags was similar.
So were the brands. You could get anything from a trendy name brand bag for under $50 to some ridiculously high-end leather numbers.
Spotted amidst the handbag jungle that day was a mid-sized Coach bag for about $250.
If you’ve got a love of accessories and have to have the name brands, it’s likely you’ll spot a treasure (or two or three) in StyleSense’s impressive inventory.
Contest
Think you’ve got the best shoe closet in Vaughan? Send us a photo, no matter how big or small. The winner will receive a $100 StyleSense gift certificate. E-mail your photo as a jpeg to newsroom@vaughancitizen.com