Retail education

[norcaltransplant]

After the little tirade about retail shopping, I thought I would share a humorous aside that I witnessed in the Zegna outlet.  A middle-aged woman, who in all likelihood was the store manager, was instructing 2 younger gentlemen, probably in their late teens-twenties, about the various jackets and clothing sold in the store.  Red light for job orientation.  Most of the information the woman provided was correct; she touched upon the differnces between hand-stiched and machine lapels, and erroneously used the bedsheet analogy to differentiate between different grades of suiting fabric.  I was quite proud of myself for NOT interrupting.

Zegna was about the third store I visited.  I stopped by once again about an hour later on my way to the parking lot and I noticed that the "orientation" was still going strong and had migrated to the sportswear section.  Its nice to know that SOMEONE still tries to make an effort even at an outlet store.

 

[imageWIS]

Interesting, but that is good news...if only more stores did that.

Jon.

 

[j]

You mean you didn't push her off a cliff for using the erroneous bedsheet threadcount analogy?

 

[imageWIS]

You mean you didn't push her off a cliff for using the erroneous bedsheet threadcount analogy?

LOL. Jon.

 

[Brian SD]

May I ask what the erroneous bedsheet analogy is? I've never heard that term before.

 

[VMan]

May I ask what the erroneous bedsheet analogy is? I've never heard that term before.

I believe it is comparing the numbers in suiting fabrics (100's, 150's, 180's) to the numbers in bed sheets (350, 400, etc).

The problem with this is that the numbers in bed sheets refer to the thread count, whereas the numbers used to describe suiting fabrics relate to something else. Perhaps someone can explain this better?

 

[JFK]

I believe it is comparing the numbers in suiting fabrics (100's, 150's, 180's) to the numbers in bed sheets (350, 400, etc). The problem with this is that the numbers in bed sheets refer to the thread count, whereas the numbers used to describe suiting fabrics relate to something else. Â Perhaps someone can explain this better?

According to this article from Departures: "The S-system dates back to the 18th century (also known at the time as the worsted count system), and then as now it denoted the fineness of a given bale of wool. In those days finished yarn was coiled into 560-yard-long loops called hanks. The S-number indicated how many hanks could be gotten out of a pound of wool. The finer the wool yarn, the farther it would go. The S-scale ran from 30s to 100s, then the finest wool available. (Today 100s wool is practically the bottom rung of the S-scale.)"