monotony

[matadorpoeta]

my cousin is visiting me from mexico with his wife and kids. they're basically here for two things; disneyland and shopping.

so i've been taking them shopping all over town and it's just dawned on me like never before that everywhere i take them, we see the same stores. every mall has gap, victoria's secret, banana republic, a disney store, an urban outfitters, abercrombie, american eagle, etc...

i know i'm bringing up something that everyone already knows, but it doesn't really hit you until you're driving tourists around, that the city you're so proud of, the city you want to show off, has the same things you can buy in any other city in any other industrialized country. it's a bit embarrasing.

we went to rodeo drive and there was an anthropologie, banana (remodeling), victoria's secret, and such intermixed with gucci and prada and carroll and co. not all these stores are on rodeo per se, but in the neighborhood.


side note:
showing tourisits around can really change your perceptions of your city. i've been deliberately avoiding a lot of streets and entire areas because i want them to see the 'real l.a.' but that's for another thread.

 

[stevo4]

Your right. And even something like 3rd Street Promenade, which can be fun with the street performers, etc. is sprinkled, or littered if you prefer, with the above mentioned stores among a few neat one-off type stores, like a Noteworthy or a Now hear this store.

But then i'll take'em to Melrose where the ratio really changes in favor of unique and different stores compared to 1 or 2 chains.

You can also just focus on the little pocket neighborhoods too like Los Feliz, Silverlake/Sunset, Tujunga Village, Montana, etc. which dial it down abit with the chain stores.

But i guess, if all you've ever heard of is Rodeo Drive, you gotta do the obligatory drive-by, just to report back home, job accomplished.

stevo

 

[drizzt3117]

That's generally true, I think it's funny that SCP has a "cheap" wing that has Banana, Gap, AX, AE, etc... and the rest of the mall is high end, pretty amusing.

 

[chorse123]

I agree with you about the monotony, Matador. You see the same thing in the UK where every high street has the same 10 or 15 shops. In some cases, it's the same street with the same shops. Bond Street, for example, has two Russell & Bromley shoe shops.

 

[Fabienne]

One is still somewhat sheltered in that regards in continental Europe.  Plenty of small boutiques, despite the few recurring ones.  I once took a couple of American friends to Paris and Normandy for a week, driving them around, and when they came back to the US, the husband admitted that he was depressed and shocked by how similar everything looks here.  And I mean it, he did have a few days of nostalgia/depression.

I should add that he is a Libertarian, so he definitely wasn't sold on France... It sort of grew on him gradually.

 

[alaaro]

A lot of these places are basically "sold" to a mall as a package, thats why malls often look the same. Same with outlet malls. Everything has the same anchors-tommy, polo, nautica, timberland, anntaylor, nike, etc. But it makes sense from their end, those are the most popular brands thats the masses buy, so might as well make it convenient and put them everywhere.

 

[Steve B.]

That's generally true, I think it's funny that SCP has a "cheap" wing that has Banana, Gap, AX, AE, etc... and the rest of the mall is high end, pretty amusing.

And they have a Sears, and no Neiman-Marcus...

 

[drizzt3117]

I think that was because there was already a NM at Fashion Island... they do have a sears though, which is rather incongruous.