Mike Albo's visit this week as the Thursday Styles' Critical Shopper to SoHo's Hollister flagship seems far less likely to spark another firestorm of anger than Cintra Wilson's visit to JC Penney last week did, and yet it also concerns the role of physical appearance in contemporary retailing in an even more central way. We knew it wouldn't take to long for him to make his way there there, but Mike doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know about SoHo's immense, bizarre Hollister. He, like everyone else, has become captivated by the young, ripped, carefully cast and coached staff.
In this four-floor space, gorgeous youth are in every room, behind
every doorway, on every stairway landing, saying hello to you, gazing
at you, confusing your grasp of reality.
Step into the aggressively alluring world of Hollister and it’s as if
you are finally the popular person you always wished you were in high
school, or Justin Timberlake and everyone wants you. Except they don’t, because these people are hired to flirt with you.
We all know it's fake, and yet while you're in there, it seems so real. Having found ourselves in a suburban mall over this past weekend, we can report that a Hollister branch store's staff members, while still attractive, are nowhere near as assertively chummy as their SoHo counterparts.
Interestingly, Hollister is one of the few (possibly only) stores that has not allowed The New York Times to photograph its interior for the column. They want to "preserve the customer’s experience", perhaps because there's not much else to the store. While, as we well know, it's hard to tear oneself away from the enthralling staff, Mike does find a flaw or two in the "psychic brothel" that is Hollister.
On the way down I stopped in the fragrance room and sampled the Laguna
Beach body mist. It smelled like Jolly Ranchers being breathed on my
face by Hayden Panettiere. Here the store also sells its California
fragrance, which is spritzed on the mannequins every hour; it’s a
noxious concoction that, I assume, is distilled from mink sex glands
and the tears of broken-hearted teenage girls.
Yeah, that stuff is truly gross, but it does ease the pain of departure as one lands on the sidewalk outside.
Critical Shopper | Hollister: A Long, Lusty Walk on a Short Pier by Mike Albo (NYTimes)
Hollister 600 Broadway at Houston Street, SoHo
Previously,
Hey, What'sup? It's Hollister, Dude!