Oh, it's fun to be a girl! And Mr. Kim, who runs So Good Jewelry in SoHo, knows this (he also seemed to know the pre-teen me that would steel minor baubles with friends, mostly rings or rolls bubble-tape wedged beneath our armpits, and – maybe it was just paranoia – he appeared to follow me around waiting for those long gone impulses to return). He wraps the store's concrete pillars in pink, lace and roses and he offers row after row of the most sparkliest, girliest, cheapiest jewelry you, or the eleven-year-old version of yourself, could imagine.
It's such a screaming corner of ultra Barbie-type femininity that I'm shocked that I've somehow managed to walk by time and again without noticing it. It might be because it looks like one of those wholesale-only places that dot the midtown shopping-scape, but, in fact, the only thing wholesale about it is the prices.
The place is cheap, but the pricing can be a little wonky. When I've got two sets of oversized plastic earrings in my hand for $5 a piece, how can I be expected to part with $20 for a simple necklace or brooch – even if the necklace has the cutest tiny pair of scissors dangling from it, and the brooch is a rhinestoned giraffe (a rhinestoned scorpion is also available)?
Special thanks to Corinne who not only introduced me to the place, but got me some great purple bracelets for Christmas.
But what do you think?