My friend sent me an alarmed text message when she went shopping for jeans for her teenage daughter. Seemed she was struck with a bad case of sticker shock by the prices she was seeing in the boutique where they shopped.

I responded apologetically: sorry, I thought you knew boutique equals money.

And then I thought about that statement.

While it’s true, boutiques can get spendy, it’s also true that you get what you pay for.

What I’ve discovered in my exhaustive research in Tacoma’s boutiques is that shopping culture is a lot like restaurant culture.

I've posted my findings on the Volcano Web site. â€" Jessica Corey Butler