Last night we went out to dinner to one of my favorite joints in the city. We had friends in town, and we decided, rather at last minute, to make an evening of it with some good food, wine, and of course conversation. While I'm a girl that couldn't be happier with a old movie & a slice of pizza, this place isn't quite like that. The service is impeccable, the decor sublime, and the wait staff leave you alone at the table for as long as you like, rather than push you out to usher in the next set of diners. Of course, you pay for it all, and rather steeply.

And so I shouldn't have been so surprised that I was able to reserve a table for five with such short notice. But I was. It's not that the place wasn't packed to the nines come dinner hour. But in these tough economic times, I guess steep restaurant bills are probably the first thing to get cut out of peoples' budgets.

Shopping at Top Shop, however, still seems to be priority for girls minding their p's and q's, especially considering the frenzy that took place in London yesterday with the launch of Kate's holiday collection. Okay, so the Kate effect is a big factor in the formula for success here, or for any brand that has her plastered all over their campaign ads.

But while most of the stuff is as cute and trendy as Top Shop normally is, I can't say that's true for all of it. The leopard "claw" dress she wore to Vivienne Westwood sold out in minutes, both in the stores and online, which leads me to ask, really?

While retailers are cutting orders by as much as 15%, if not more, I can't help but to question why girls would spend a solid £100 on a knit dress with a cat paw. Or maybe it's jealousy speaking here. If it were that easy, come next spring, you'd see my line chock full of badly printed dresses.