New kids on the block

On a dazzling spring morning earlier this year, Olympic figure skater and professional power shopper Johnny Weir tromped out of the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel -- the grommets on his Taverniti jeans glistening in the sunshine -- and headed straight for Newbury Street. His Valentino sunglasses could have been a blindfold and he still would have found his way there. Weir's ability to shop is instinctual. Much the way that a cat can recognize the sound of a can opener from 500 feet away and understand that food is coming, Weir can sniff out Coach leather goods and Escada Eau de Toilette to find a prime shopping district in any city.

"Boston is one of my favorite shopping cities," said Weir as he ogled a white leather iPod case at Alan Bilzerian. "What I love is that it's getting better. Seriously, New York is great, but it's overwhelming. Boston is just right."

Tomorrow marks the holiday that shoppers such as Weir celebrate by tearing apart neat displays of cashmere scarves and spending until they scrape the upper end of their credit limit. Last year, 60 million shoppers flooded stores the day after Thanksgiving, according to the National Retail Federation. Many will start their Christmas shopping tonight, with malls such as the Wrentham Village Premium Outlets opening at midnight to capture shoppers who can't wait until morning to feel the stab of a fellow shopper's elbow at their rib cage.

Aside from the usual Black Friday fanfare, this year's shopping holiday in Boston is notable because the retail landscape has changed dramatically from just a year ago. Boston, once considered a fussy, conservative cousin to Manhattan's swinging retail scene, has blossomed into a shopping city that has seen dozens of new stores, both international boutiques and local houseware shops, open to style-starved city residents.

"It's incredible," said Janet Rutledge, a 26-year-old Back Bay resident, as she popped out of the recently opened Valentino store on Newbury Street last week. "I've been going to New York for Black Friday, but this year, my friends decided to stay and shop here."

There's a reason why the city's quality of shopping is flourishing. For the past two years, commercial rents in several top shopping districts were in a slump, making Boston more desirable to boutiques that may have previously been undecided about locating in Boston, says Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.

"It doesn't matter if the promised greenway is still asphalt or if the new tunnels are crumbling," says Mike Tesler, an instructor of marketing at Bentley College and president of Retail Concepts. "There is a perception that the city is investing in itself and, in turn, both shoppers and stores are interested in being in a city that feels invigorated."

A Boston location has also become a sign of prestige among retailers.

"You can tell people in other cities that you have a location on Newbury Street, and they immediately know where you're talking about," says Ludovic Grandchamp, CEO of the North American division of Comptoir de Famille, a French home store that recently opened its first US location on Newbury Street. The street also saw the recent opening of Tess and Carlos, an upscale women's clothing boutique.

Retailers are notoriously tight-lipped about plans to open new locations, but brands such as Paul Frank have been open about their interest in locating to Newbury Street. In an interview last week, designer John Varvatos said he is also looking for a space in Boston to open a retail location. "I've been coming here since the early 1970s," Varvatos said. "I've always loved Newbury Street. But I think Boston has really grown up in the past couple of years. It's become a really important destination, not just for the history and the culture, but now for shopping."

In the event that you've fallen behind on Boston's new-store openings, here is a plan for tracking some of the best new stores for your Black Friday shopping pleasure. (Please note that this is only a partial list of some of the stores that have opened this year.)