DC’s Union Station is more than just a hub for transport.  Unlike most train stations, the historic building boosts an array of stores and boutiques to shop away the hours and minutes while you wait to be carried away to your destination.

Loaded down with luggage and bags after returning from my recent trip to NYC, my shopping senses were sent a tingling when I spotted a new beacon of shoe-ista chic, Shoe Woo.

Shoe Woo is where shoe brands from the Jones Apparel company join forces for an intoxicating assortment to respond to every shoe mood; Nine West, Enzo Angiolini, Circa Joan & David, AK Anne Klein, Sam & Libby, Boutique 9, Bandolino and Joan & David.

In a buttoned up and conservative city (think Talbots and so-called “sensible heels” *shudder*), Shoe Woo kicks convention to the curb and offers big city style at affordable prices.  Affordable to real women that is, not Anna Wintour’s “every woman should have several pairs of triple digit designer shoes in her closet” rose-colored glasses idea of affordability.

The store boasts full-length mirrors with decals of little black dresses that customers can use while trying on shoes, shopping bags are inscribed with “You’ve Been Wooed,” and the store’s entrance bears a Shakespearean quote: “She’s beautiful and therefore to be wooed.”  There are even rolls of stickers at the cash wrap to entice moms and the young at heart.

It was love at first sight (sorry, Nordies).

My travel fatigue forgotten, I roamed the store and tried on shoe after shoe like a little girl playing dress up in her mother’s closet, giddy at putting on her first pair of grown-up heels.

Imagine being a kid in a candy store. Shoe Woo is kind of like a Willy Wonka candy store  with colorful shoe confections, where flats, wedges, heels, gladiators, and booties are laid out as far as the eye can see and in nooks and corners, so you want to walk around and explore. There is no perimeter shelving, and all merchandise is displayed on furniture and fixtures situated throughout the space, which features plush seating and giant custom shoe sculptures.  It’s whimsy meets chic, playful yet posh.

So far the concept store is only open in two locations: Menlo Park, NJ and DC, though a Manhattan flagship is on tap to open on 59th Street and Lexington Avenue over Labor Day weekend. Two to three more stores are scheduled to bow over the next few months.

Consider me wooed.  If they served drinks, women would never leave; pink cosmopolitans, naturally.

Follow me on Twitter @ DCShoeDiva

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