Luxury shopping in Bologna: when shopping malls get pretentious

Like every city of a certain size, Bologna has a few shopping streets dedicated to seriously expensive brands. (I could call them luxurious instead of expensive, but after reading Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, I'm not too sure about that.) Galleria Cavour is without a doubt the most emblematic of them. If you don't pay attention to the banners, the outside appearance doesn't tell you much about the spending going on inside.

When you cross the street, however, you'll see enough designer shops to make Karl Lagerfeld whisk his ponytail like there was no tomorrow.

All very exclusive, but no matter how pricey, they're the same shops you'll find anywhere. The only one that caught my attention was this shoe store:

And especially its ceiling:

Other than that, I'll take the Saint Hubertus Galleries in Brussels over Galleria Cavour anytime. Beautiful surroundings (if not more beautiful) and much more characteristic stores. Crossing the gallery and turning some corners, I found some shops much more to my liking at the Piazza Galvani.

A crowded shoe store with a presentation that made me smile:

A profumeria with what seemed to be a great collection. I'm just thinking that because I saw Annick Goutal (of which I adore every single perfume) though, so I might be wrong.

It must look like all I do here is shopping, but I'm also having a blast eating all the different cookies I can find and drinking great wines. And afterwards we wander around to burn off the calories. Win-win!