Abercrombie also owns Hollister. As for cut and style, their clothes are boring – nothing special or innovative, IMO (I don’t know about long-lasting; I never buy them). They are just extra-expensive and popular. My brother used to work for Hollister. They only hire good-looking people. They have code words for it, though; “outgoing” means good-looking. They treat their employees so poorly and turnover is so high (for that reason and others) that they are constantly hiring. Part of every manager’s duty is to recruit more employees. Before an assistant manager can move up to store manager, he has to recruit another assistant manager (crappy, low-paying, stressful job with terrible hours). I remember he often wore jeans with holes in them to work; one day I noticed his jeans had no holes. Joking around, I said, “Aren’t you supposed to have holes in your jeans?” He said, “Well, it’s recommended.” Wow. They *recommended *that your jeans have holes. Needless to say, my brother left as soon as he could; it was an interim job to pay the rent while he got a real job. But it was interesting to find out some of their dirty secrets (the half of which I have not mentioned).
Include in that music stores. Ever since the Musicland/SamGoody chain got dropped by BestBuy they have all but disappeared (along with Suncoast Video).
The last one I’ve seen in existence was a FYE (for your entertainment) store.
What pisses me off about so-called “lifestyle brands” is that they are essentially bullshit. Take Abercrombie & Fitch. They are marketing clothes “based on a preppy, young Ivy League lifestyle” in every freakin mall in the country.
The worst example is the T-shirts. They basically take t-shirts that look like something you would get at lacross camp or at some clamshack on Martha’s Vinyard or Newport, RI. They then genericize them and sell them for $40. My brother used to say “why should I pay $40 for those stupid T-shirts when I already have a closet full of rec league basketball and soccer Ts?” And they didn’t have J Crew stores or a lot of A&F stores when I was in college. You actually had to BE a dickhead overprivileged preppy jerk to have some stupid yacht club tshirt from Block Island! Now ANYONE can look like a gay frat guy.
And at least A&F is like 100 years old. What the F is with creating some bullshit backstory for Holliser pretending that it was created by some douchebag explorer in 1922 when it was actually founded by some marketing department 2001? Like it’s supposed to be where Ernest Shackletons kids shopped or something?
On an unrelated note regarding Barnes & Nobel. What is this new trend of having all these satellite stores adjacent to the main mall? I thought the whole purpose of a MALL was so I didn’t have to get in my car and drive a quarter of a mile across the parking lot to go between Barnes & Nobel, Pottery Barn, Best Buy and Red Lobster?
Yes! Thank you! I wholeheartedly agree. It’s like you’ve gotta be a billboard for something you aren’t. I have more than three or four dozen t-shirts from jobs/units/places/bases/days/times/events/leagues than I don’t know what to do with at the moment–yet I daren’t part with a single one (they’re all of deep sentimental value, I assure you). However, while these things are basically kitsch, they are the same damn thing the “mall clothiers” try to hawk for $15 a piece.
I simply cannot imagine paying $15.00 for a t-shirt. Especially without the memories that go with them. I prefer to earn my t-shirts, or at least have a reason to buy one for like, $5.00. My wife, on the other hand, is contemplating a bonfire in the back yard. However, I’m willing to compromise: come over to my house, and I’ll sell you two t-shirts for $15.00, and will tell you an entertaining story that goes with each of them.
[sub]Underlining by Tripler[/sub]
Aren’t these the guys that give out that medal every year for like, Economics, Physics and Bookbinding? ::d&r:: 
Tripler
Oh, no, wait, they’re the guys that blow up books with dynamite every year.
There [del]is[/del] was a mall in Murfreesboro that closed, & now it is a Verizon Regional Office.
The whole mall!:eek:
It’s like cellphone joints are some bizarre alien parasite that ends up taking them over completely…
You know the cliche that ostriches stick their heads in the sand? Well, I think the cellphone is pretty much the same thing. I had a cell phone (and tried to use text messages for practical, work-related purposes) long before my colleagues and friends, but I’ve never used it as a way to kill time, which is what probably 90% of the U.S. population does, particularly women, but now men are doing it too.
Just look at people waiting in line or riding a train–anywhere. The first thing they do is pull out their cell phone, even though they haven’t received a call. Not a book or newspaper. Playing with your cell phone is a way to pass the time and not see the world around you.
Many, many years ago, I worked for Sweeney’s Jewelers in a couple of malls.
It was owned by Zale’s Jeweler’s, who also owned Gordon’s Jewelers and what they always called “The Fine Jewelry Department in Dillard’s”. At that time there were only a couple of other stores to choose from (probably all owned by some other big company, I’d guess).
The different stores marketed to different customers, and the girls I worked with all dreamed of moving on to “The Galleria”- a very large, upscale mall in my city.
The worst thing about Hollister is that on the tags of the girls and guys clothing, it says “Dudes” and “Betty’s”. I’m not saying you have to be some hardcore surfer just to wear surf clothing, but that is absolutely pathetic to me.
I’m 29 and am one of those that is obsessed with fashion, and I can’t remember the last time I went to a mall. All they have is a bunch of stuff that tons of people have already tried on before me and crap that I can get cheaper online with a promo code without having to deal with any of the hassle. (In case you don’t know, if you are planning on buying something online, say from Banana Republic or Urban Outfitters, just google “Urban Outfitters promo code” or whatever. There is always some 10-25% off code out there, which will make it cheaper than buying at the store, even with shipping and handling).
I did just buy the book mentioned above off Amazon, thanks for the suggestion.
Make a quilt out of them.
Or just wait for it to come to Ross for 50+% off.
Yeah, but by the time it goes to Ross, it’s two years behind, and like I said, I am a fashion junkie, I can’t be having that!
Plus, the Ross and Marshall stores around me are dreadful. Old Tommy Hilfiger junk with his name in foot tall letters across the front, and I abhor looking like an advertisement. I understand there are some really great Ross stores around the nation, but they aren’t the ones around me!
It’s called a “California-style mall.” A Brobdignagian one called Dix30 opened the other year in the Montreal burbs.
Exactly what we needed in an era of gasoline crunch and climate change: not only do you have to drive your car to the mall, you have to drive your car while in the mall.
Thank Og Montreal is still one of those places with a strong shopping-street commercial sector (the street between my house and the metro is lined with shops of all kinds, and only the Dunkin’ Donuts, the IGA, and the drugstores are chains - there isn’t even a 2nd Cup but there is a groovy independent coffee place - and this is certainly not a rich neighbourhood), as well as vigorous downtown malls most people take transit to get to.
Of course, the same people who built Dix30 are trying to tear down a scruffy neighbourhood in the adjacent borough and build a gargantuan commercial development immediately south of downtown, so we can murder this street and Ste Catherine Street while bringing in monstrous hordes of cars. (The project is being sold on the social housing it will supposedly include, which the southwest is desperate for. Cost of building the housing development? Several dozen million dollars. The fine the company will incur if it doesn’t build it? $4 million. :rolleyes: )
That only really works when you have California weather. A few weeks ago I was at a mall in Pennsylvania near where I went to college. We didn’t even go into the main mall. All the high end stores are now clustered in giant independent buildings in front of the main entrance.
Tripler - That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Half my T-shirts in college were college or fraternity or Spring Break party T-shirts that I bought for $10 from some guy wandering around selling them. You could not get an Absolut Cornell T shirt, a Lehigh-Lafayette shirt of Calvin pissing on Hobbes, Harvard Crew, or Sigma Chi Derby Days T shirt unless you either went to one of those schools or atteneded those parties or somehow otherwise aquired one from someone who did. It’s like buying a concert T shirt to a concert you never went to.
That is the essence of the “lifestyle brand” bullshit. Now everyone can look like an East Village hipsteror rec league soccer champ or like they spent their summers lifeguarding andworking the marina in Cape Hatteras. You know where my “Amsterdam” t shirt is from? When I worked in fucking Amsterdam for 3 months. What do I need a Hudson River T shirt for? To let the world know which river I cross when I go to work in the morning? And if I want someT shirt from a mountain, I’ll buy one from Killington or Okemo or any of the peaks I’ve actually skiied at.
Not that consideration for such evanescent bagatelles as a Montreal winter ever stopped these folks. I guess they figure that with the increased carbon emissions, we’ll have California-style weather by and by, and the mall is far enough inland that it won’t be submerged when the tidal bore comes down the St. Lawrence.