was rather interesting. It was rather upscale. I decided to start 'shoplifting prices' which is a colorful way of saying check a few prices to see what kind of a mall it had morphed into.
A pair of 501 Levis were marked $98 and I can get them for half that delivered to my door on Amazon. At a Sunglasses Hut I saw $300+ Ray Bans. The total mind blower is when I saw the Burberry shop and ambled in. I was curious what an Old School trench coat would cost me. A few decades ago I had one I had picked up somewhere along the line secondhand.
An Old School trench coat is the preferred overgarment of spies, secret agents and private detectives and must be worn at all times with a fairly wide brimmed fedora.
Anyway, I have the fedora but I guess my career as a private eye isn't going to launch because they wanted about $2250 for the damned thing! WTF?!
I just searched on line and that actually is about what they are running. (I also noticed I can get an almost identical one at Banana Republic for a little over a hundred bucks.)
I stuck my head into the Swarovski store and asked if they carried optics. Nope. Just jewelry. I glanced at a few hefty prices and ambled out.
As I type this I DO recall the last time I was in the mall, I was in and out because I went directly to the perfume counter. I had just licensed as a ham and got lucky having had a brief chat with a guy in French Polynesia. I wanted that QSL card and on his QRZ page he advised against mailing for a card because there was a lot of mail theft.
In a hold my beer moment I grabbed my card, a pink envelope, a lavender ball point and headed straight to the Macy's perfume counter and explained what I wanted to the old prune behind the counter. She rolled her eyes and didn't know what to say but the Gods were with me that day. The woman in her late 40s had overheard my request, laughed and came over and fixed me up. She addressed the envelope for me in a very girly manner, even dotting the Is with little tiny hearts, slapped a big lipstick kiss on it and asked me if I wanted it sprayed in Chanel #5.
"You don't have to," I replied. "Just use the cheap stuff that strippers use."
"OK. We sell gallons of this stuff," she replied.
She soaked the letter in cheap perfume and I dropped it in the mail on the way home. About a month later my card arrived with a note telling he he made sure his wife opened it when it arrived.
Needless to say, Abercrombie and Fitch and Banana Republic were there. Both used to sell safari and travel clothes but went upbeat decades ago. You used to be able to walk into either of those places and walk out looking like you were going to go shoot an elephant somewhere.
The big question I had to ask is where the money comes from. All of those places turn a profit or they would not be there.
Yes, there is a Jos A Banks there, which isn't high end and Banana Republic is somewhat reasonable in the mall but the high end places confuse me.
For the most part, this general area is pretty working class with the usual fairly modest homes and a few year old car in the driveway. This here ain't Beverly Hills with swimming pools and movie stars and Rodeo Drive nearby. This is Ford, Chevy Subaru and Toyota country. The average housewife certainly isn't a supermodel, nor is there a lot of gardeners, pool boys and maids in the households.
I just can't seem to figure out where the money comes from to support the high end stores.
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