And he got a recommend! Appalling.
I like the cut of that Phil guy’s jib though - he’s a few down.
Most - as in easily 95%+ - of the products for sale at outlet malls were made specifically to be sold in the outlet. It isn’t the same as the stuff sold in the regular stores.
Some places (usually higher-end stores) do still have a small section in the back of things that were probably originally for sale at a regular store. If you’re into higher-end clothing but can’t afford it full price, this can actually (potentially) be worth it. But even the high-end outlet stores (by which I mean Barney’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Saks outlets primarily) carry easily 80-90% stuff made just for the outlet stores.
Most people who go to outlet malls wouldn’t know good high-end clothing if it hit them in the face. They want brand names. That’s really all that it’s about. I mean, I hope it is… the stuff most of the stores sell is pretty awful, and nowhere near as nice as the same brands at their regular stores.
But - it is actually significantly cheaper. Everything can be had for at least 30% off the marked price (which often is the same as the prices at the regular stores, to try to fool you) as a standard, and normally it should be an even higher discount than that.
So if you want brand names plastered across your body, don’t know how to recognize good-quality clothing (as well as good fit and style), and don’t want to spend much money, outlet malls are where to go. No surprise, then, that they’re popular and expanding.
In reply to the main topic, which is normal malls, I actually kind of like them. But what I like are the high-end malls that the article suggests won’t be dying any time soon.
I don’t have any money at the moment, but I’ve developed expensive taste over the years. For high-end clothing etc., there is loads of information on the internet, as well as places to buy it (often at far better prices than you can in stores). But you won’t really understand it without handling it and trying it on in person, which you can’t do online.
So high-end malls are enjoyable as a way to learn about high-end clothes, basically, without needing to spend any money if you don’t have it.
And if you’ve never been to a true high-end mall, you won’t know that they don’t have many of the things that make regular malls intolerable. Many don’t have kiosk vendors, which is one of the prime annoyances of regular malls, for example.
I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but I suspect the experience of shopping at truly high-end malls today (my experience mostly being based on Fashion Island and South Coast Plaza) is somewhat similar to the original malls of the 60’s. All the things that everyone dislikes about malls now (teenagers, crap products with bad prices, Sbarro, etc.) developed later.
I’m ignoring the obvious economic reasons behind all this. Like I said, I have expensive taste, but I haven’t found steady employment since finishing grad school a couple years ago so I can’t actually afford anything - and yet I’m better off than probably most people in their 20’s these days.
My friends and I used to hang out at the local mall, one of the largest and busiest in the area, on Saturdays, bouncing between the video arcade and the Radio Shack (where they let us use the computers which we could not yet afford and which our parents had no use for), the book and music stores (which actually stocked some unusual titles; they were chain stores, but they were not yet totally homogenized and generic), and the restaurants.
The food court arrived toward the end our “Shack Rat” era, and caused the demise of our favorite little diner on one quiet end of the mall. I think that was a sign of things to come, as mall stores started getting shinier, louder, and more expensive - but not necessarily better.
Now, there are no arcades left to hang out at (well, very few), Radio Shack is just a mutated, shiny thing that was once a great store, and that mall has been totally vacant for a couple of years and is about to get bulldozed. I feel a nostalgia for certain aspects of the era, but I will not miss the overpriced specialty shops.
Before the advent of the glorious mall, you would have had to go to three different places, with all the hideous travel that implies, to feel fatter, poorer, and dumber. Now all can be accomplished under one roof!
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