This Thanksgiving holiday was a retail downer for me. (No wonder, then, that I made up for all the disappointment by indulging non-stop in some great home cooking.) Even though I deplore the crowds of Black Friday and generally hate to venture out, I do usually make a light recon mission on the following Saturday in order to make a dent on the obligatory gift list for the upcoming holidays.

So, I wasn't in New York, which may account for the bulk of my disillusionment. But still, Philadelphia does boast one of the largest luxury malls on the east coast (King of Prussia which, by the way, is where our new vice president elect was spotted shopping at Thomas Pink the day before his nomination).

So what did I do? Watch old movies, of course, and consume as much digital entertainment as possible. One of the movies I happened to watch (and not for the first time, or the second, or even the third) was An American in Paris. The music! The dancing! The color! And of course, the clothes! It's all so breathtaking and romantic, which is just the remedy to one of the greatest disappointments a fashion designer can face...bad shopping, that is.