Outlets are the bright spot going into otherwise dim retail season

on an overcast English morning,two women from middle england are out shopping.They duck first into the Gucci boutique,fingering discounted handbags and rifling through racks of last season's fashion lineup.Dolce&Gabbana is next,folllowed by Armani.The outlet boutiques among 136 clustered along a cobblestone outdoor shopping center called Bicester village about an hour's drive from London-are mobbed with bargain-seekers even at an early hour.You get value for money here,who pauses to chat only briefly before her friend hustles her off to Valentino.My husband is in businesss.so it's hard for us just now,but i don't mind paying for quality.Luxury outlet malls are the one bright spot of brisk trade going into the holiday shopping season.In recent weeks,retailers have reported small but still rather anemic signs of recovery.Yet sales numbers show that consumers have been flocking to discount outlets all year long,depsite the recession. Value retail.the london based compay that owns the largest string of luxury outlets in Europe,including Bicester village,has seen sales rise 20 percents to just over one billion euro in the first theree quarter of 2008,that compares with predictions of flat or at most a two percents increase in spending across the retail sector over the holiday shoppping period.value retail,whose major investor also owns part of the sprawling woodbury common outlet mall outside of new york city,has seen its growth this year double the average over the past 14 yeats ,when sale increased at a rate of about 10 percents annually,according to scott malkin,valure retail chairman.it's human nature to indulge,i think we've gone away from i need more for the sake of more and more,to people being more discerning in what they purchase.that sentiment has benefited luxury outlets in a year when full price luxury sales have been forecast to fall as much as 10 percents ,rather than view outlet shopping as cannibalizing from their high sterrt or madison avenue sales,luxury retailers in fact have welcomed the oppotunity to sell excess merchandise in a slow time ,while reaching a separate segment of customers to whom they wouldn't normally be able to sell.We're service to the brand.the ceo of value retail management .the brands have a lot more stock they want to dispose of ,elegantly,we're a platform for them that is quality,with a customer that is aspirational.

For centuries Serbs have striven with epic fervor to unite their scattered people,define their lands,preserve their unique identity.

States and most of Europe,To many Serbs,that makes Nakalamic a traitor.After Kosovo grabbed independence,TV viewers worldwide watched radical nationalists storm through Belgrade,Serbia's capital,smashing windows and torching a symbol of arrogant foreign meddling-the U.S. embasssy.The Serbian government views Kosovo's independence as an illeagl dismemberment of Serbia's sovereign territory-It ordered Serbs in Kosovo-many of whom receive cash assistance from Serbia-to boycott elections there,and most obeyed.Without the requisite ballots from his district.Nakalamic lacks a council vote and thus can't fully participate in drafting budgets and ordinances.Yet many Serbs seem resigned to the new borders,and to the prospect of a smaller,tamer Serbia at ease with its neighbors.People are marching and demostrating,but no one believes we will get Kosovo's back,a young woman I met in Belgrade as she and her fiance.A Caribbean American from New York,had a midnight drink with friends on a stylish Belgrade street,A student from Florence,is the kind of liberal,internationally oriented Serb on whom Western governments pin their hopes.After Kosovo independence and the resulting riots.Serbian voters.in the spring of 2008,surprised the world by propelling into power to a pro-european union government that vowed to track down Serbian's war criminals- evidence of a widespread belief that the country's best hope for cultural and economic growth is with the West.But outsiders should never mistake resignation for acceptance.It's Serbian pride,we can't say,sure .take kosovo.Do whatever you want to us.what kind of people would we be?A human rights lawyer who pursues accused Serbian war criminals,says the gulf between unreconstructed nationalists and Western-style democrats,including Serbia's president,Boris Tadic.is not as wide as outsiders may think.To Popvic,all major parties to some extent cling to the ideal of uniting Serbian-inhabited lands-a catalyst for way in the 1990s.It's charitable to say this country is divided between democrats and nationalists.In reality,the nationalist ideal rules.