• Miami Herald/Bloomberg News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Women’s Wear Daily , Thursday, October 23, 2008 10:45 AM

Today's feel-good story - and we're always on the prowl for something to cheer you up in these days of cutbacks, layoffs, low earnings, even lower forecasts and general gloom about the future of entrepreneurial plumbing -- comes by way of Rodeo Drive. The upscale shops in Beverly Hills evidently aren't feeling any pain.

"Thanks to big-spending tourists and wealthy locals, Beverly Hills's Rodeo Drive is shrugging off the financial crisis," says the subhed in the Miami Herald. Doncha feel better, now?

Bloomberg's Michael Janofsky reports that ''the epicenter of luxury fashion'' is simply shrugging off economic slowdown. "It's our opinion Christmas is still coming on Dec. 25,'' says Thomas J. Blumenthal, president of the Rodeo Drive Committee.

In a related story out of Cincinnati, an Enquirer headline reports that "Bad economy boosts pawnshops." With credit at banks tightening and unemployment rising, many pawnshops have become bankers-of-last-resort for people behind on bills.

"People are sell-sell-sell-sell-sell," Steve Chuke, owner of Jewel King Jewelers of nearby Newport, Ky., tells John Eckberg. "Some are pawning (borrowing money against an item); but really, most want to sell."

Women's Wear Daily, meanwhile, finds a positive spin for the Sarah Palin "Fashion-Gate" story (see above). "At least someone is shopping: the Republicans and Sarah Palin," says the lede. The story goes on to suggest, waggish tongue in cheek, that "in this day and age, anything that boosts the profile of fashion and retailing can only be a good thing." ;

Read the whole story at Miami Herald/Bloomberg News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Women’s Wear Daily »