She’s Always Ready to Engage In Shop Talk

If there’s ever a Shoppers Hall (Mall?) of Fame, Suzy Gershman will be a shoo-in. As the author of eight “Born to Shop” guides, she may be the ultimate cross-cultural consumer, at home in tony boutiques and gritty bazaars from Macau to Milan.

Gershman conceived the series a decade ago over lunch at L.A.’s Bistro Garden with three friends--all Ladies Who Shop. That gathering helped set the books’ breezy, opinionated tone. “I want readers to feel as if we’ve met for lunch and I’m giving them tips for their trip,” the author says.

We have met for lunch at bustling Barney Greengrass, atop the Beverly Hills Barneys. The tall, seemingly tireless Gershman has already cased this temple of style and swept down the street, scouting the merchandise at Planet Hollywood and scoring two sweaters on sale at the Limited. L.A.’s not yet among the “Born to Shop” titles ($14.95 each), which do include New York City and New England, but she’ll contribute shopping tips to the next edition of Frommer’s guide to Los Angeles.

“What I do is consumer reporting, with lots of careful fact-checking,” Gershman says. “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard, ‘Oh, my wife could do your job.’ Well, I couldn’t do my job if I hadn’t worked for Time-Life for 10 years.”

From the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s, Gershman wrote for Time and People out of Los Angeles. Since then, in guidebooks, magazine articles and segments for such TV shows as “Good Morning, America,” she has brought a journalist’s skepticism and doggedness to the shopping beat. It’s a mercantile jungle out there, and Gershman’s mission is to help readers navigate it, and enjoy themselves in the bargain.

Both the “I Shop, Therefore I Am” crowd and those (including this writer) who rank shopping just above dental surgery can profit from her scouting reports. Along with time- and money-saving tips (No.1 haggling hint: dress down--”The richer you look, the higher the starting price”), maps and tour itineraries, each guide features a “Best of” summary chapter geared to whirlwind tourists and visiting execs with only a couple of hours between meetings. Included are details on transportation, taxes, duties and shipping.

How does the Connecticut-based Gershman equip herself for blazing around the world for the guides’ periodic revisions? With comfortable shoes, an umbrella, a water bottle, a flashlight (you never know) and perhaps a local-language dictionary. “It’s a very physical, very personal job,” Gershman says, adding that she updates virtually every entry herself, works anonymously and accepts no compensation of any kind from the places listed.

Funky doesn’t faze her, but those who like their local color glossy get fair warning. A dead-chicken rating system is used for the mercados of Mexico, for example, and the caveat “Princesses Need Not Apply” (they know who they are) flags particularly shady areas. There’s no shortage of upscale shops in Hong Kong, but why miss the opera singers and fortune-telling birds at the Temple Street Market?

“More and more you find the same designer boutiques and retail chains in cities around the world,” Gershman observes. “I include them, but tell people they shouldn’t bother buying things they can find at home, often at a better price.”

She has an eye for value at every level, from designer seconds to custom-tailored suits, from fake pearls and swap-meet Louis (Vuitton, that is) to the real McCoys. And she believes you get what you pay for--up to a point.

“I hate to buy something and then find it much cheaper somewhere else,” she says. “But I keep in mind my Moscow rule of shopping: Pretend you’re shopping in Moscow, where you know if you don’t buy something you want immediately, you’ll probably never see it again. If you like the price and can afford it, buy it--don’t count on finding it for less in the next block or the next city.”

True trophy shoppers can even go on safari with Gershman. The tours began when Virgin Records tycoon Richard Branson hired her to escort family and friends on a Hong Kong shopping blitz. “I keep the groups small,” Gershman says. “And we go into back rooms and private warehouses that most shoppers never see.”

Some tours have been shore excursions from cruise ships. Last year she sailed from Istanbul to London on the QE2, showing bargain-thirsty passengers how to pillage every port, waving credit cards instead of cutlasses. “In the south of France, we went to a produce market with a local chef, who turned what we bought into a wonderful lunch,” Gershman recalls. “Why skip lunch? Shopping should be a total experience.”