This campaign caught my eye because the model's a dreamy Patrick Wilson lookalike (only with better hair). And because it's for Dillard's, a department store I have many fond memories of from my childhood. When we first moved to Arizona (leaving Oakland Mall behind), the mall near our house was brand new and anchored by four department stores: Goldwaters, Broadway Southwest, Sears and Diamond's.
When I was in high school, Diamond's was bought out by Dillard's and transformed into the most glamorous store in the mall, quickly becoming my favorite. My mom took me there to get my first suit. And my friend Greg and I used to run up enormous bills in college on clothes we couldn't afford and wonderful meals in the restaurant. (The Box Office and Glemby Hair Salon were always available too when you had no cash but urgently needed concert tickets or a new 'do.) Dillard's is still around today, but the consolidation of department stores around the country has been a sad trend with many negative side effects. From a career standpoint, having nearly all of them be Macy's has cut newspaper advertising enormously, killing jobs and accelerating the death of the newspaper as we know it. Even sadder, though, is the loss to the community that each store and its original owners brought. Whether R.H. Macy wants to admit it or not, robbing the people of Chicago of their Marshall Field's was criminal. And the same goes for the disappearance of Hecht's in Washington, Goldwaters in Phoenix, and the May Company, which had its charms but managed to dismantle many local chains in its own right before being bought out Macy's. I never knew why I completely lost interest in shopping years ago but the more I think about it, the homogenization of it all probably played a big role in it.
When I was in high school, Diamond's was bought out by Dillard's and transformed into the most glamorous store in the mall, quickly becoming my favorite. My mom took me there to get my first suit. And my friend Greg and I used to run up enormous bills in college on clothes we couldn't afford and wonderful meals in the restaurant. (The Box Office and Glemby Hair Salon were always available too when you had no cash but urgently needed concert tickets or a new 'do.) Dillard's is still around today, but the consolidation of department stores around the country has been a sad trend with many negative side effects. From a career standpoint, having nearly all of them be Macy's has cut newspaper advertising enormously, killing jobs and accelerating the death of the newspaper as we know it. Even sadder, though, is the loss to the community that each store and its original owners brought. Whether R.H. Macy wants to admit it or not, robbing the people of Chicago of their Marshall Field's was criminal. And the same goes for the disappearance of Hecht's in Washington, Goldwaters in Phoenix, and the May Company, which had its charms but managed to dismantle many local chains in its own right before being bought out Macy's. I never knew why I completely lost interest in shopping years ago but the more I think about it, the homogenization of it all probably played a big role in it.
3 comments:
Now...don't you go saying anything ba about my secret lover- Patrick Wilson!
I think that guy's Josh Wald.
If you think that that dude up there is Josh Wald, then obviously . . . .you don't know him.
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