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Shopping and Anthropology
Jul. 17th, 2005 02:37 pmSo, for anyone who doesn't know, since leaving Microsoft I've been working for Nordstrom as an Enterprise Security Engineer, developing ways to better secure their systems and networks from attack. As a result, I get all sorts of news and communications from Nordstrom's marketing department.
I am woefully ignorant of all things relating to clothing or fashion. As a result, my employer's business is quite foreign to me -- which is rather a change from Microsoft, which was in a business I understood quite well. However, I'm pretty fascinated by business in general, so more than anything this just made me curious to see how it (that is, the clothing industry) works.
So last week I dropped into the Nordstrom store in downtown Seattle and had a look around. Now, I shop for clothing maybe once a year, and spend only a tiny fraction of my income on it (on the order of maybe $300/year.) As a result, actually looking around a clothing store, especially a very upscale one like Nordstrom, is practically a new experience for me. Most of my clothes come from Target. My business-casual wear tends to come from Eddie Bauer. The very concepts of things being "in style" or "out of style" is foreign to me; when people talk about things being dated due to being last year's fashion, I can't imagine how they're able to tell the difference. In other words, most of my observations here may be painfully obvious to the rest of you -- particularly the women in the audience -- but they're new to me so I'm making them anyway. :-) Well, I only had a few minutes last week so I didn't spend much time observing, but one thing I did observe is that upscale clothing is (by my standards) extremely expensive.
Well, the latest communications I'd been getting from Nordstrom's marketers were all centered around the Anniversary Sale, which is going on this weekend. Apparently, this weekend is actually the highest-volume weekend of the year for Nordstrom, substantially larger even than any of the weekends near the Christmas season. So much so that they actually solicit help from corporate employees to work the sales floor, which (since they continue to pay the corporate employees their normal salary while they do this) must be outlandishly expensive.
So, today I decided to go down to Bellevue and check out the Anniversary Sale. I figured that between the substantial (often 50% or more) discounts of the Sale and my employee discount, some of the things there might actually drop all the way down into my price range. Mainly I was just looking for business-casual clothing, as that's what I spend most of my time in. It is technically the dress code requirement at work, but as I work in the I.T. department my coworkers tend to play pretty fast and loose with what constitutes "business casual."
Well, I didn't actually end up buying anything. :-) However, what was intended to be a shopping trip actually ended up more of a fascinating anthropological study to me, since as I mentioned, the world of shopping for clothes is basically entirely unknown to me. Also, keep in mind that my observations are entirely restricted to men's clothing, as I know nothing about women's clothing save that it can often look very nice when it is, you know, actually on a woman. So now, my observations -- both about others and about myself -- from a few hours spent in the Bellevue Square Mall:
( Read more... )
I am woefully ignorant of all things relating to clothing or fashion. As a result, my employer's business is quite foreign to me -- which is rather a change from Microsoft, which was in a business I understood quite well. However, I'm pretty fascinated by business in general, so more than anything this just made me curious to see how it (that is, the clothing industry) works.
So last week I dropped into the Nordstrom store in downtown Seattle and had a look around. Now, I shop for clothing maybe once a year, and spend only a tiny fraction of my income on it (on the order of maybe $300/year.) As a result, actually looking around a clothing store, especially a very upscale one like Nordstrom, is practically a new experience for me. Most of my clothes come from Target. My business-casual wear tends to come from Eddie Bauer. The very concepts of things being "in style" or "out of style" is foreign to me; when people talk about things being dated due to being last year's fashion, I can't imagine how they're able to tell the difference. In other words, most of my observations here may be painfully obvious to the rest of you -- particularly the women in the audience -- but they're new to me so I'm making them anyway. :-) Well, I only had a few minutes last week so I didn't spend much time observing, but one thing I did observe is that upscale clothing is (by my standards) extremely expensive.
Well, the latest communications I'd been getting from Nordstrom's marketers were all centered around the Anniversary Sale, which is going on this weekend. Apparently, this weekend is actually the highest-volume weekend of the year for Nordstrom, substantially larger even than any of the weekends near the Christmas season. So much so that they actually solicit help from corporate employees to work the sales floor, which (since they continue to pay the corporate employees their normal salary while they do this) must be outlandishly expensive.
So, today I decided to go down to Bellevue and check out the Anniversary Sale. I figured that between the substantial (often 50% or more) discounts of the Sale and my employee discount, some of the things there might actually drop all the way down into my price range. Mainly I was just looking for business-casual clothing, as that's what I spend most of my time in. It is technically the dress code requirement at work, but as I work in the I.T. department my coworkers tend to play pretty fast and loose with what constitutes "business casual."
Well, I didn't actually end up buying anything. :-) However, what was intended to be a shopping trip actually ended up more of a fascinating anthropological study to me, since as I mentioned, the world of shopping for clothes is basically entirely unknown to me. Also, keep in mind that my observations are entirely restricted to men's clothing, as I know nothing about women's clothing save that it can often look very nice when it is, you know, actually on a woman. So now, my observations -- both about others and about myself -- from a few hours spent in the Bellevue Square Mall:
( Read more... )
