Dear Pottery Barn Kids

The BBQ Pit
1

I do not know how I got on your mailing list. I mean to say, I didn’t personally request a catalog–I am sure that you got my name from other catalog shopping I do. Not that it’s any big secret that I am, demographically, a prospective customer.

However, I want to assure you that I am NOT in fact a good prospect.

Here’s why.

First of all, every airy setup you show presumes we all have white beadboard/wainscoting (or whatever that whore M. Stewart would have me call it) on all four fucking walls, everything painted white including the floor (underneath that sisal matting, that is). I’ve got news for you: I don’t live in Nantucket. Check the zip code.

Second, my optical cones and rods are still functioning fine, as are my kid’s. That’s right, I can see colors. I actually like colors. I think they enhance decor. I think they are especially important in a child’s room. Apparently we disagree here, you and I. I’ve never seen so much washed out, heathered, pale, pasteled, bleached-out shit assembled in one place before. If I subjected my child to this much blandness, I give him 36 hours before he goes completely screaming-meemie nutso and takes a knife to the family pet right on his bedspread in a desperate attempt to add color and visual stimulation to his living environment. No, we like Fluffy & Fido. I would not take the chance.

Third: college fund. That’s right. If I had a spare $5,000 lying around, it’d be going to the college fund. Not for some ensemble that includes a child-sized distressed-leather rocking chair, coordinating curtains that look for all the world like the ticking used to cover prison matresses, and a matching hand-hooked rug in light pea green and palest canteloupe. If our college fund was flush, I think I’d give the money to The Flat Earth Society more willingly than reward your buyers for their taste.

Fourth: The butterflies. The butterflies. The infernal limpid, cotton, pale-yellow and pale-green appliqued butterflies. The butterfly-themed crib bedding has been in your catalog for three fucking seasons now. Enough with the butterflies. While it would be impossible to fully justify the prices of your merchandise, offering something NEW for a change might go a ways toward fooling more of us that you’re cutting edge or even innovative.

How many more catalogs will you send before you give up on me? Counting the days!

2

HaHa, My friend works a second job as a stocker for Pottery Barn. The prices they charge for that crap is absurd. He always has a story about some snotty/snobby/stuck-up bitch that comes into the store. The best is when some moron comes in and buys (insert huge expensive item)and wants him to load it in their (insert tiny expensive car). Then they get mad when he can’t make it fit.

3

Oh, I don’t know. I personally like their decorating ideas. Our home is designed more along contemporary chique lines with plenty of jewel tones, tapestries, persian rugs and rich woods like cherry and honey maple. But that does not make me hate the Pottery Barn style. I personally would love to spend a couple of weeks or a month in a beach house decorated exclusively with furnishings from these folks. It’s got a lite, airy, summer sea breeze feeling that is really uplifting. Especially considering the latest local high temps and oppressive humidity.

So how do you feel about the Designer’s Collection Catalogue? Don’t get it yet?.. Not to worry, it won’t be long. We get them all. They just open up our mailbox and back up the mail dump truck to the opening. I’ve called to cancel but they never listen and it seems like we get two new ones for our troubles.

4

The antidote to PBK is The Company Store Kids. They’re obnoxious on the sheer volume of catalogs but the have bright colors and good prices.

5

You mean there’s actually a store called “Pottery Barn”?

As God is my witness, I thought the “Pottery Barn” reference I saw on Friends was a joke. I couldn’t believe anyone would name a store Pottery Barn with a straight face.

6

All I can think of is the pottery barn episode of Friends…

That was a funny episode.

7

I have noticed another ugly trend in catalogues like the one you mentioned…“distressed” tin ornaments (on little stakes to stick in your garden or on little hooks to hang from where-ever). I always feel like saying, “People! TAKE A LOOK! This stuff is just RUSTY METAL!” It ain’t “distressed”, the salespeople probably left the shipment out back and it got rained on , and they’re trying to pass it off as okay!

And WHY do these companies assume that you’re going to scrap all your own decorations and such and do up your house like they say to? I’ll decorate my house the way I want to, not the way soem magazine or catalogue says it"should" be decorated (“This month, pastels are IN!”) grrrrr…

8

Yes, there really is a pottery barn. And I don’t mind the adult stores much. I could take a page or two out of their decorating idea book and improve Chez Cranky.

But the kid’s catalog just drives me crazy. I’m not paying $70 for pale gingham ANYTHING.

9

Whatever you have to say about their stuff (Hey, I like it), you have to dig their website.

Whenever you wave your pointer over something in the picture, it gives you this, “Locking phasers on target” view.

A bedroom picture and a bathroom pic.

*Btw, that bathroom rocks!

10

Thanks, moggy, for reminding me about my personal pet peeve - fake distressed/antiqued anything! I’ve spent a lifetime living with old furniture in old houses, and when I’m rich enough someday to go buy myself a new piece of furniture, I want the danged thing to look new! Wood furniture that someone has poked holes in and sanded the paint off of just burns my buns.

11

Long, long ago I was an assistant buyer for Pottery Barn Catalog, right about the time PBK was being spun off into it’s own entity.

Lemme tell you, that place is scary, and it always cracked me up that their offices look nothing like the stuff they pitch in those catalogs.

The companies are owned by Williams Sonoma (the hoity toity kitchen store) and are housed in the WS headquarters in SF. Everything about that place is cold and gray, even the people. Believe me, those washed out colors are really exciting to them.

I always knew that the markup on merchandise was extreme, but it wasn’t until I had to write POs for things that I realized how bad it was. Some of those lamps that retail for $179 each are purchased for well under $10 from India and China.

12

I’ll stick with the Victorian Trading Company, thank you very much.

13

Never seen the Pottery Barn reference in Friends, but I just can’t stop thinking of the Vitamin Barn reference in Simpsons. :smiley:

“Don’t you remember camp, Marge? After swimming and playing in the woods all day, the kids would all gather down by the old Vitamin Barn.”

[sub]This waste of time brought to you by your local Simpsons fanatic. Feel free to lynch me.[/sub]

14

Dear Pottery Barn Kids,

Please, please, please, I’m begging you, take me off your mailing list. I’m not your demographic; hell, I’m not even a potential customer. Never had kids, never will. Big part of the reason is that I don’t like kid-oriented stuff. Trust me when I say that Hell will freeze over before I need/want your merchandise.

Dear Fredrick’s of Hollywood,

How long before you get the message? You continually send me catalogs adorned with “this is your last one if you don’t place an order” stickers. I have yet to place an order, and you still send me your catalogs weekly. This has been going on for years. Please, for the love of God, stop the madness!

15

Don’t forget the Pottery Barn reference on Seinfeld. I think it was Kramer that was getting all these catalogs and Jerry saw the PB one and said something like, “Oh good…now I can satisfy my interest in both Pottery and Barns!”

Hee. Mr. Sunshine used to stock at a PB and consequently everyone we knew got Christmas presents from there (40% discount for employees!) And when they opened it and saw the ubiquitous beige box that everything there comes in, we’d say, “Now you can satisfy your interest in both pottery and barns!”
BTW, love PB but HATE PBK.

16

In “American Psycho” Reese Witherspoon’s character says something about shopping at Pottery Barn. Only in the movie,
IIRC it isn’t brought up in the book.

17

I’ll take the catalogs. No, really.

Robin, who finds it hard to get mail of any kind

18

What’s really cruel about the Pottery Barn Kids thing is that the poor children are obviously not allowed to have any toys or even clothes that don’t harmonize with the decor.

“No Legos until they make them in Peach, Mauve, and Mist!”

19

It is a joke – just a real one.

PB spent a heap o’ money on “product placement” to get an entire Friends episode based on their products.

20

I really, really had no idea what this thread was about, then got home from business trip tonight, voila! Pottery Barn Kids catalog in the mail. Addressed to previous occupant [sub]who apparently spent quite the pretty penny on home decorating[/sub] or current resident, moi. I do fit their demographic, but who in the hell would put white in a kids room? Unless they just want to give the kid paints, crayons, whatever, and expect the white to be filled in.

Really was expecting some kind of mutant cabbage patch kids clone thingys. Oh well.