Relocations And TransitionsRetail EuthanasiaMakes Way For Panties

By now you may know that Eastern Mountain Sports and Lounge are being dislodged from their homes on Broadway in SoHo to make room for a giant Victoria's Secret Flagship moving from Prince Street and Broadway. EMS is reolcating a block or so downtown, but Lounge is closing its doors forever, so let's give them a moment.
OK, that's enough.
Frankly, a moment is more time than we have given them in the past few years, and if you are wondering why Lounge isn't relocating as well, take a look above at the jeans we snapped the other day as we checked out their closing sale. Yes, those studded and embroidered jeans would be just on the cutting edge if it were 1999, but now, in 2008, that style can basically be described as "contemporary douchebag". The problem is, Lounge never seemed to move on from that look, so it went from a fun, fresh store to a place where we wouldn't be caught dead. It looks like Victoria's Secret, of all chains, is actually performing a mercy killing.
Even though we were surprised to see stacks of jeans from fresher brands like Naked and Famous and Cassette at the store, they were overwhelmed by tired stacks of Energie and other random labels like those pictured.
Of course, now that the store is closing, everything is 50% to 75% off...or is it? Sure, the tickets are marked that way, but our friends at Racked discovered that just before the markdowns were taken, all the prices were jacked up, so the discount is meaningless, and in most cases is just around the same as full price. We thought that $400 was a little high for the original price of Cassette jeans.
By the way, we're pretty sure this practice is explicitly illegal, so good riddance to the shysters at Lounge, and don't be fooled by their "Sale".