The sluggish U.S. economy and stagnant wage growth add to the pressure on retailers by capping consumers' disposable income, but the desire to shop for trendy new outfits remains strong.

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At a trendy coffee shop in the French Quarter, nearly every table has an open laptop computer on it.

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For a hipper setting, wander along the bobo (bourgeois bohemian) paradise of the Canal St Martin, a shop- and cafe-lined canal in the trendy 10th arrondissement, which packs out with picnickers and revellers as soon as the sun shines (and well into the night, too).

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He sips double espressos in a trendy coffee shop in a Beirut neighborhood which escaped bombardment during the latest war.

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Bike shop owner Dave Ortiz remembers when the city's Meatpacking District, now home to trendy restaurants, nightclubs and pricey boutiques, was the wild, wild West.

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