I am 90% certain it was Jeff Foxworthy who referred to this chain of stores and lamented that he could never tell if he was on the men's side of the store or the women's side. I am 100% certain that the joke was referring to the Hollister Co. store chain, because they do just about everything to confuse you to the point that you can't tell if you're examining clothing for men or for women no matter WHERE in the store you are.
First off, it's dark. I mean I understand that if you're trying to convince ugly people to purchase clothing that will make them less ugly, the best tactic is to hinder their vision so every mirror they look in, they appear less ugly (because they simply appear less in the mirror). But Hollister is one of those stores that seems to think EVERYONE is too ugly for their clothes. That's why all of the models aren't wearing clothes, right? "I wonder what shirt would go with these $100 jeans that someone has thankfully torn up FOR me so I don't have to waste my time getting my jeans torn? Oh, according to that mannequin, they would go well with 900 hours of exercise to get abdominal muscles so hard you can grate cheese on them."
Their next tactic to confuse you is selling the exact same range of colors and styles no matter what gender you are. Check out the women's section for this button-up shirt that comes in salmon, pink, rose, purple, indigo and a few other colors from the feminine spectrum. Walk across the store to the men's side and you will find button-up shirts in the EXACT SAME COLORS. I'm not saying you would have to be gay to shop here - but I'm sure it would help.
The third tactic is just to obliterate your mind with stupidity. I already mentioned the fact that they sell jeans that are pre-torn, or the pre-faded look or pre-ruined-with-bleach. I'm almost expecting a line of jeans to be pre-bloodstained or pre-left-a-chocolate-bar-in-the-pocket-and-it-melted-and-caused-this-poop-looking-stain-on-the-right-butt-cheek. But they have the audacity to play tropical music and the main room features an endless video of daytime surf at some beach in California.
I get it - you want us to associate your store with California hipster surfer style. But are you expecting me to believe this is some kind of window and I'm at the beach? Are you trying to get me in the mindset of looking at the surf as if it will entice me to purchase more clothing items, even though you don't really sell bathing suits or bikinis or surfboards or anything? I'm so confused - looking at this has just dropped my IQ by about 20 points. Ohhh.... now I get it... You'd have to be an idiot to shop here.
Well, you certainly have to be a size L or smaller to shop here...
I'm frankly waiting for the revolution to begin. The overweight are outnumbering the underweight, and all of these stores selling to the "pretty people" and offer nothing above a size L need to be driven out of business. Yes, there will always be a size S in a department store for you - that doesn't mean we should have a nationwide chain of stores that ONLY sell size S. And yes - I plan on posting this in every review I write of businesses who think that they don't have the obligation to offer clothing in sizes that are becoming more of the norm.
The store's last tactic is placing all of the perfume and cologne right near the registers. So if you've stumbled in the dark long enough to find your manly pink shirt and pre-tattered pants and you're dumb enough to purchase it - now you have to wade through a cloud of stench to complete the transaction. I'm sure that there are times of the day when the braindead masses have NOT "tested" all of the bottles which caused the noxious fume bog, but I have not encountered those hours of the day and been in this store.
No, not coming back here ever unless I am taking care of a waifish surf-brain-addled teenager who is too spoiled and lazy to ruin their own pants like real children and they have mummy or daddy's credit card to make the purchase. And even then, I'm probably dumping the kid off at Auntie Anne's pretzels and going on a shopping spree with the credit card in a store that makes clothing I can wear.
(Pre-tattered jeans! For the spoiled rich brat who can't be bothered enough to perform the routine activities of a normal child!) read more