Savvy has long lamented the lack of real fashion retail in our charming city. She’s been buoyed by the bumper crop of boutiques over the last year but she’s also been crushed by closings (she’s still in mourning over Rugged Roses, open just a few blissful months). While your old pal Sav is a huge believer in traveling globally and buying locally, she often hears the same thing, “I’d rather shop in New York.” Hence, Baltimore is constantly caught in the ultimate couture Catch-22: Without shops that bring brilliant designers to our door, we’ll keep sending those dollars north, but without babes willing to buy, how can we expect new stores to survive? But there is hope and it’s in the form of Form. Graphic design entrepreneur Aimee Bracken has opened the first boutique that rivals New York classics such as Scoop and Intermix. Expect to find the best from designers like Alvin Valley, Christopher Deane, Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent, Vera Wang Lavender, Vivienne Tam, Elijah and ProportionofBlu denim (to name a few). While her eye alone puts her at the top of Baltimore’s fashion pack, Aimee helps her swiftly growing clientele make intelligent fashion choices for their lives, budgets and bodies (try getting that at Scoop). As Aimee wrapped Savvy’s purchases, a darlingly dressed thirty-ish gal who had just found the perfect thing to wear to an upcoming wedding uttered something that almost had Savvy in tears, “I came down from New York to shop here.” 1115 W.36th St., 410-889-3116
