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In the 1980's people wrote about malls as cultural centers, as temples to shopping. Now, they're dying.
Many observers are speculating about the growing trend of so-called dead malls: once-flourishing, large retail spaces that now have a high vacancy rate, low numbers of pedestrian traffic, or the lack of an "anchor" store (typically a department chain). Is it because of economic recession, or stagnant middle-class wages and growing income inequality? Or has the death of these malls been hastened by the rapid growth of online shopping?
It's difficult to say, but the dead mall phenomenon is becoming a cultural item of interest -- for retail historians, urban explorers and documentarians alike. We may read about dead malls in The New York Times or The Atlantic, but film footage can say much more than words.
Is Amazon to blame?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:29PM (18 children)
There was a time when i went to the mall: there was a computer and game store there. Now there is women's shopping stores, Sears (womens shopping) and the Bay (womens shopping).
There was a store outside the mall i used to go to, but it stopped selling computers without an O/S: they cozied up with MS to sell operating systems (and were forced into MAC's because.
Now i purchase on-line (except for groceries) because the mall has NOTHING I WANT!!!
I am not female, i do not need 300 pairs of shoes, nor do i change my fashion every second week (and do not want to look like the gay guy on GQ.
I buy online because it is easy and because THE MALL HAS NOTHING I WANT!!! (except for that one store that carries stuff like Doctor Who and Star Trek merchandise and i like to look and handle certain things, hur hur.
If the mall stores weren't so useless with the same thing OVER AND OVER AGAIN (how many women's clothing stores do they neeeeeeeeeed?!?!) i might want to shop there, but 'The Source' is the closest thing there that has stuff i'd want.... and i don't want their stuff.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:48PM (1 child)
Bet your wife/mom buys your clothes at the mall though.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:12PM
My ex-wife buys clothes at Walmart and Bass Pro. My girlfriend buys clothes online. My mom I think buys clothes at fancy "lifestyle center" shops.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:24PM (6 children)
I know this deals in stereotypes, but I think malls likely cater to women because women are more likely to actually "shop." I put that in quotes to differentiate between simply buying and the more extended wandering that constitutes shopping.
Typical guy back in the day if he had to go to the mall to buy a shirt and pants would likely walk into the first store, find the men's section, find something vaguely okay, find his size, and check out. The stereotypical woman would spend 45 minutes in a dressing room trying various things.
Now, introduce online shopping and the man can now do exactly what he did before but even more conveniently from his own home sitting in his boxers. The woman cannot.
I know this is all a generalization, but I'm old enough to recall the difference between going to the mall with male friends (usually something only teenagers did -- and spent time at the arcade or eating mall food or whatever) vs. going to the mall with girlfriends. The latter could consume many hours seemingly doing nothing other than "shopping," and adult women continue to do it.
So, why do malls cater to women? Because men have learned they can basically do their transactions online (and were rarely big "shoppers" anyway), while women still value the shopping experience... Particularly for things like women's clothing stores (as you note).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:18PM
but I'm old enough to recall the difference between going to the mall with male friends (usually something only teenagers did -- and spent time at the arcade or eating mall food or whatever) vs. going to the mall with girlfriends.
Yep, that describes my teenage years pretty well: going to the mall with male friends, and hanging out at:
1) the arcade
2) food court
3) the ice cream shop
4) the music store
5) the book store (usu. Waldenbooks)
6) Radio Shack (making fun of their computers)
7) Sears electronics sections (and making fun of their computers too)
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:24PM (4 children)
find his size
My wife has repeatedly and exhaustively informed me that men only have like 4 measurements tee shirt size, dress shirt collar size, pants size, shoe size. Well and another that is off topic. I can and have online clothes shopped knowing those 4 dimensions. But she claims women are all curvy in random fashion and there is no standard measurements like for men and there's some BS about size inflation to make fat chicks feel better by providing fake lower numbers, so they gotta try on everything and its a random guess if it fits right.
I admit mens underwear is like S, M, L, XL and all we gotta remember is which one we are, whereas women have entire departments for their underwear and use alphanumeric codes that sound like 1950s vacuum tubes. "I wear dual triode 12AU7 on top" sounds like something madonna or katy perry would wear on stage. And even then she has to try everything on to make sure it doesn't rub her grid cap connectors wrong or WTF.
I can buy a suit off the rack and it'll fit, perhaps not perfectly, but adequately, without even trying it on, but she claims that's physically impossible for women for anything fancier looking than army BDUs.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:51AM (1 child)
Women's clothing tends to be more form-fitting, while men's tends to "drape" more. If a woman has a part of her body she wants to accentuate/downplay, she has to look around for something that "fits" in the right places and "drapes" over the undesirable bits.
Despite recent trends of some young men wearing skinny jeans, most men's fashion is considered fine if somewhat baggy. And the solutions to men's body type issues are standard -- unnecessarily large shoulders on suit jackets which make upper body appear larger while draping over a gut, baggy (a.k.a. "pleated") pants that hide extra large thighs and butts, etc. The more formal men's clothing is, the more it tends to hide body issues.. While the more formal types of female clothing tend to cause more problems.
All of this is to say while we joke about it, I completely understand why women spend more time shopping for clothes, given fashion norms.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:24AM
I sold women's suits and dresses (and hosiery and bathing suits, too) for a couple years and can vouch for what you posted. Dress sizes are an approximation, at best. I've seen a woman try on a size 8 dress that was too small, and a size 6 that was too large. (For those who do not know, size 0-2 is twig-like, and size 20 is for a rather "substantial" woman.)
Even worse, dress size is only one part of it — there is also body shape. Buxom with slim hips? Flat-chested with big hips? Pretty much even between top and bottom? I'd recommend very different outfits for each of these body types.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:00AM (1 child)
Oh, and by the way, size inflation (deflation?) is a real thing, and not just for women. And the less "hip" the store, generally the more screwy the sizes get. Try actually measuring the size of your pants waist sometime. Unless you buy pants from outside the U.S. or from an honest suit store, expect the marked size to be 2-4 inches less than measured. Some stores are now even doing 6 or 8 inches larger than claimed size.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:54PM
That sounds like a meme legacy brick and mortar stores would advertise against online shopping.
I've never experienced anything like that when online shopping and it sounds like it would be extremely expensive and difficult to implement.
So as a practical engineering matter how does one manufacture mens pants such that my 32 inch inseam is delivered as 32 inches plus or minus like half an inch at most, yet somehow the inches around the waist is 8 inches bigger or whatever?
My second best theory about this, after the false rumor theory, is its just legendary Chinese quality control at work and people retcon the hopelessly too large clothing as intentional commie plot while "forgetting" the miscut mismanufactured pants that were 8 inches too small to put on. Note that kind of mistake isn't a minor error in shrinkage or calibration but is approaching 25% error, which is staggering, like they rebooted the fabric cutting machine while it was cutting or something.
8 inches is no laughing matter, man, that would turn "kinda short" pants inseam into something like capri's or board shorts if they cut 8 inches short. Nobody ever put 32 inseam pants on a 32 inseam body and saw its actually 24 and I'm showing 7 or so inches of hair calves. Or imagine me trying to wear 40 inch inseam pants on a 32 inch inseam frame, the pants would go past my toes, I think? It would be close anyway. It would be like onesie pajamas which admittedly were pretty cool when I was about 4.
My third best theory is its the fashion industry being more insane than normal and the logical next step beyond pants that hang down to my knees is parachute pants so incredibly baggy I could fit a petite chick in there with me. It might be the clothing designer has simply gone temporarily insane, which doesn't count.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:31PM (8 children)
I've been thinking about where I shop now, and if I go anyplace in person it's to the used and second-hand places. The reason is you can't get quality stuff new anymore. Everything is made in China and instantly breaks, no matter how formerly prestigious the label on it was. But you can go to the antique stores and buy a claw hammer forged in 1935 that will last until the end of time. Same thing with furniture. Everything you see in the stores new now is about the Ikea level of quality and will fail inside 18 months. Antique stuff is solidly built, and if you keep an eye out for classic designs it will never go out of style. Last but not least, often the used and second-hand stuff is much cheaper than the new stuff, so it's a double win.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)
The reason is you can't get quality stuff new anymore. Everything is made in China and instantly breaks, no matter how formerly prestigious the label on it was.
This is hyperbole. There's still a lot of good stuff, but it'll cost you.
But you can go to the antique stores and buy a claw hammer forged in 1935 that will last until the end of time.
You can get very good hand tools (unpowered) at Harbor Freight now for very cheap prices, with a lifetime warranty to boot.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday April 28 2017, @10:47PM (1 child)
That's true, but you have to be able to differentiate the true quality stuff from the cheap Chinese crap that's just marked way up. Sure, maybe not a problem if you are reasonably knowledgeable about the product, but I can't do that for every purchase, so often I don't know if the $40 widget is truly better than the $8 widget. But if I buy the $8 widget and it's crap... well at least I still got what I paid for.
That's one of the big problems with the shops in the mall. They are full $8 cheap Chinese widgets that have been marked up to $40. So why would I go there?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:08AM
If you're a guy, mainly people-watching and restaurants, that's about it. Depends on the mall though; some malls do have some interesting specialty stores. I used to live near a mall that had a little store that had nothing but Irish stuff, for instance. Also, if you have a cute girlfriend you can go for the women's clothes, to watch her try stuff on.
(Score: 2) by draconx on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:39PM (2 children)
This is simply survivor's bias.
Of course if you buy a tool or piece of furniture made in 1935 that is still in usable condition 80 years later it is a well-made, durable item, pretty much by definition. There was probably a lot of crap made in 1935 too, but it all broke within the decade so nobody is selling broken 1935-era crap in 2017.
I am certain that there are items made in 2017 that will also last a lifetime. 80 years from now, those items will still be around, all the broken crap will be gone, and 22nd-century humans will be complaining that nobody builds products to last anymore, and admiring those early 21st century products all seem to last forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @12:48AM (1 child)
I have personally witnessed the continual decline in quality in consumer goods. Sure, many things are cheap now, but that is because they are made of imitation sub-plastic. Everything is disposable and non-repairable. It's only in the 21st century that it's become common to buy a "decent" brand product and have it break the first time you use it. Remember the Quality movement of the 80s and early 90s? Don't hear shit about that anymore, do you? It all dates to when we started mass importation of SHIT goods from China. Everybody does it now, like VLM says, so there is no escape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 26 2017, @02:50AM
That or younger folks than us see disposable fashion as being in-line with how short-lived fashion trends are - so it makes sense not to throw a hissy fit over cheap non-durable fashion driven products as you're likely to junk it when the trend changes next summer. We live in different times.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:09AM
While almost all power tools are now junk made in China, there are lots of hand tools still made in the US. The original Crescent wrench, Channel Lok pliers, and Vice Grips are all still made here. You just have to check the label If you use one of those original models, you will immediately feel the difference in quality.
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(Score: 1) by DavePolaschek on Wednesday April 26 2017, @01:11PM
It's made from genuine plastic, so don't settle for any cheap imitations!