Give me that, give me that, that pop music.

While shopping is still on my mind, I keep thinking about the connection people seek and find in shopping. The example of boutique shops helps further show peoples desire to connect while shopping. I’ll start with a local shop, then go costal.
Skateboarding has always been a cool phenom. Growing up far from the hub of where skating took off, we didn’t have authentic skate shops. We had Zumiez, which at the time was a giant amongst midgets. Once skate culture took off people from with in the culture could open up shop, literally, we had a giant among regular sized people. One such shop is Satellite. Satellite is like one of those restaurants that have crazy shit on the walls, knick-knacks you would only think of when you are on drugs. Satellite is a good example, but their sister stores gets even better. Installation is the shoe addicts’ crack house. Installations crosses the loves of skating and shoe addicts, mixing in more style than you can handle. The store stocks some amazing shoes, as well as giving artist have free reign in designing the store interior. This is a store that you could expect to see in SF or LA. The owners, Raul and JG, created something more authentic than the owners of The Billionaire Boys Club/ Ice Cream, Pharrel Williams and his manager. Shoe culture is so salient that I will get to it in another post, but what makes Installation “pop,” is its connection to art and style. The old skool Nike hi-tops feel right at home on an old mini merry go round or in cubby boxes the next week. The artifacts and knick knacks are ever-present, but never the same. This fabrication of culture helps lower the barriers for people to get into the shoe addict culture, just as much as it helps keep those already in it well connected and stylish.
Having a store with the perfect salesmen, that are friends with all the clients and can recommend the perfect item and doesn't even need to toe the fine line of being pushy, would be perfect. Stores are always looking to strike up a nice conversation, but more often than not, TV spots and web banners come across as yelling or as domineering as my uncle Tom. Seeing artifacts, like those in installation, makes me feel like I'm reminiscing with a friend about way-back-when. Good boutique stores fit the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, but these words are in the form of a great a conversation.

Can't get no satifaction.

As my mind wanders I was thinking about shopping gratification. Mall shoppers thrive on the opportunity to get the satisfaction of getting products right from the source, as if the mall is a fountain of youth for shopper statifaction. People love this gratification so much, that they knowingly go out of their way to spend extra money at stores rather than purchasing it on-line. WHY!? I’ll get to that, but the entrepreneur in me starts to think about linking the Internet with a Star Trek like replicator. As always, Japanese technology seems to have a finger on the pulse of great ideas.

This product allows you to place a product where you would in your house, or stand in front of a mirror and see how that new out fit would look. but to get back to the point of satisfaction, would this revolutionary, not yet available, product even really help?

What makes shopping so satisfying? Lets take a step back and see why we buy new things to begin with. There are plenty of studies about how people shop almost as an addiction (keeping up with the Joneses, conspicuous consumption, and Affluenza). You get depressed, you get some new shoes. Life can feel cluttered confusing and overbearing and making a purchase washes it all away. Is it that buying items that reflect who we are within a community keeps us connected to our social groups? Fashion seems to be an ever updating job, in which, keeping up says just as much as what you are wearing. When we refresh this connection to others with new apparel, we can feel the support of whom we associate with. If you pick up some new clothes, people say “nice shirt, where did you get that?” Even if they don’t say anything people pick up on new pleats or the luster of new clothe. Sure getting recognized feels good, but there are a million different things we could do that reward you with similar recognition. What about this connection to our peers gives us relief from our crazy lives? Maybe it’s just that. We work at jobs that push us around and deal with people that can be frustrating. But making a purchase is a freedom; we pick the colors, styles and images. People might even get crazy and make creative choices. I’m sure there are droves of women out there that would agree when I say, sopping is an art. New fads blossom out of innovators in fashion and cultivators of style. I’d say this makes a pretty big statement about the democracy of expression in capitalism.