Design Trends 2012: More reprocessing of the past

This article in Vanity Fair describes a design rut that we seem to be in at the moment.

I’m not sure I would describe it as a rut, but I think there is a lot of reprocessing going on.

You may wonder why I care.

I don’t work in design but I do have this habit of moving around a lot, and buying/selling/decorating houses so I can move seems to be my unofficial job. I also have 47 blogs in my RSS reader under the home/interior/design category that I have been using as resources for about 4 years. I see a LOT of design in order to have an opinion on it.

Looking at all these blogs, I have wondered how the 18-25 crowd looks at a lot of the resale stuff, clothing and music from years past as new. (anthology, lonny, backgarage are examples) I attribute this to a specific age group because that seems to be my observation from the bloggers but it could be more widespread.

I do think as a rule the younger generations tend to drive style & design innovations and it then travels through age brackets like waves. By the time it reaches the eldest brackets the youngest don’t want it anymore.

Its like Eddie Izzard once said, things work in a circle: cool hip & groovy is right next to looking like a dickhead, but you can’t back into it, there is only one way around.

Some of my thoughts about this younger generation’s design mash ups:

• They take furniture that my grandparents donated to charity years ago and call it mid-century modern and cool. I sometimes call this style “granny chic”. I make fun of it, but I do have a 1965 stereo credenza in my living room now.
• Sometimes the rooms look like a 19th-20th century explosion with no 2 pieces with any similarity whatsoever. I sometimes think of it as the garage sale look. (I also have a mixed era home.)
• This new generation takes jeans and sneakers from the 80′s and call them cool one day and wear bell bottoms from the 70′s the next. (This I can’t do)
• They have convinced me that yellow gold colored jewelry is ok again after loathing it for about 20 years post 80′s. (about 75% of what I wear is yellow gold now)
• They like 80′s music, and not really the stuff I feel nostalgic about.
• The people who haven’t lived through much of the 20th century seem to be driving the rebirth and reprocessing of all the styles from that time.
• It is also important to note that the millennial generation has the highest unemployment of any age bracket due to the recession. It may not be a surprise that they would think so differently about design/life and choices based on what they can afford and have experienced.

The vanity fair article cites several reasons for this design rut. One being a cultural overload where people just can’t process any more new information because the internet/call phones was too much! This may be true for the Boomer age groups but not the Genx-Millennial. I think the millennial is actually driving the design changes and for completely different reasons.

Does this drastic innovation make me less interested in new stuff? New design? More nostalgic for the past? Not at all.

I feel lucky that all the drastic innovation and change that is listed in the article happen just after I graduated high school. (internet, computers, cell phones, social networks, search engines) None of the available professions at the time really appealed to me so it makes sense that I now work in a field (internet marketing) that didn’t exist in 1993. I look at these radical changes as “normal” and something I need to and like to learn about.

I think there are other elements to this design nostalgia epidemic and reprocessing phenomenon.

1. It is easier and cheaper to reprocess than invent. This relates to my previous post about ROI being the only metric in business these days.  Society has no time for developing cutting edge design. Good ideas come at the sacrifice of time and a lot of re-dos, and time is expensive just like materials. And what materials are available now that weren’t 10-20 years ago? No real innovation there either. Things just keep getting made from cheaper less durable materials. The only R&D going on is how to make things cheaper that look good but fall apart quickly so the customers come back again to buy more. Plus we don’t have enough trees for everyone in the world to own teak/oak/mahogany furniture.

2. We have had a more documented history in the last century than ever before both through museums, video/audio, photographs and the family history of people passing down their personal stories while living much longer. We look back at history and think, boy they had it right.  Nothing is as elegant as how they designed things back then. And they took pictures in B&W, what an elegant design choice! You get reprocessed things like the PT Cruiser/Plymouth Prowler/Chevy SSR, Oxford Heels, Swing Dancing, Sailor Pants, Pea Coats, Red Lipstick/Bottle Blondes, Bombshell hair, Mad Men, Starburst Clocks and just about any kind of hat.

3. Law of diminishing returns: It is also more difficult to keep finding something “new” in design when we have to design so much more stuff. It is common for Americans to replace their entire closet of clothes every 3 years and retail stores have to replace everything on the sales floor every 6 weeks to seem “new” again. We kind of don’t respect good design, or any design. As a culture we want to throw it out as soon as we see it in too many places and be more unique again. Shows like Project Runway also show how anyone can be a designer with training and everyone gets more educated about what the demands of great design should be. This makes the general public much harder to impress.

4. At the same time a certain part of the population is sick of all the new-new-new and the churn that happens. We want useful, dependable, reliable and timelessly elegant.  We don’t have time to go shopping for things every 6 weeks in order to find those elusive great items at a great price before they’re sent off to the overstock stores. And of course when you do need something…you can’t find it anywhere because the supply chain in China didn’t anticipate that need 6-12 months ago, and it’s not “new”. I think some people literally choose to go retro because they see it as timeless. In many cases this is cheaper, more elegant and less work.

5. Globalization happened. We used to think it was quaint to go visit another country and come back with something to remember it by.  Now we see places all over the world in places other than World News Tonight or National Geographic. We see the world on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Imagur, Stumble Upon and Google. What used to be new to us is not all in mash up mode. We take the best of every era as well as every culture in our past to create this new hodgepodge mix that represents who we are. And everyone is more global now than we were 20 years ago. I have had fascination with Asian prints and Indian jewelry as much as Scandinavian furniture. We have bought most of our cars from other countries for a while. It is just lagging that the rest of the items we buy are more globally influenced too. I sometimes click to buy things on Etsy or from a blog link to a store and don’t notice that the store isn’t even in the USA until I see the shipping cost. Sometimes I buy it anyway, it is a rare moment to be unique in my neighborhood.

Lastly, we’ve seen the future before.

We grew up hoping for flying cars and they never showed up.

Our future can be found in watching FUTURAMA. Or Wall-E and  Idiocracy.

We know where things are going, and it seems more about recycling and less about space ships so I’m going to hang out with the millennials and see what else they come up with.

Most Offensive Wedding Gift Ever – An Apron

With all that has happened in the last 100 years in women’s suffrage and our battle for equality of the sexes,  I am surprised and a bit offended that this company thinks that a 1950′s style apron is the perfect wedding shower gift. Who thinks that? Getting a blender that both you and your husband can use to make smoothies from twice is at least equal. An apron says: Hey you, woman, go make dinner! Grunt grunt…

Haven’t we fought hard against female stereotypes and the opportunity to be self sufficient, smart and hold an equal career and home responsibilities with a man? How can these aprons possibly be appropriate when they plunge us right back at the turn of the last century? A girly apron like this is only worn by a woman, never a man. Why not get a more functional William’s Sonoma Gender Neutral Apron that both he and she can wear depending on who is doing the messier cooking? Why say: Hello, I am not good for anything but cooking or cleaning, don’t ask me to think… with one of these career limiting sexist aprons?

Eww. All I have to say is if I ever get married, don’t get me one of these. Please, I would rather have a blender.

Updates abound…

A recap of some random things floating around in my head this morning:

1. The Golden Globes were anti-climactic without a big star studded event surrounding the awards. I actually don’t think anyone cares who the best actors or movies were this year when they can’t see those people live on TV at that moment. I don’t think anyone thinks any of these winners are any better this year because they didn’t see the people behind it or the big showy spectacle. I suppose it questions the validity of these kind of award shows. Do people care at all who wins? Is it indicative of better quality entertainment? Is it just a publicity blitz for the entertainment business in general?

2. The Christmas decorations are much harder to put away than they are to put up. And more exhausting.

3. Sinus infections suck. I woke up with what I thought was the beginning of one, but hopefully allergy meds have solved this. I feel better now.

4. The reviews about the movie The Kingdom were wrong. It is a very good movie in the sense that it examines alot of information about a problem and lets you make up your mind about what to do about it. I prefer that to just a canned solution that they impose on us, especially since no one has found the solution anyway. 

5. I am swamped at work again. So please don’t expect a lot of posts here in the next few weeks. It’s going to be busy so I probably won’t be able to post.

6. New trends in Internet marketing continue to emerge on blogs and a lot of newsletters I have gotten in the past few weeks. They are right in that people are more fragmented than ever, but I don’t think we know enough about the people we want to target to really make use of all this technology yet. Few marketers I have ever met really know who they are looking for (and all their demographic info) to sell their products to. Just buying a bunch of media with a broad audience and guessing isn’t very smart. ROI will jump with better information from product and consumer research on existing customers and analysis for trends among them to target new people. The ROI process has a limit between the cost and conversion data only.

7. Being friends with an ex is harder than it looks. I was moving in that direction ok, but Kev wasn’t. I think he wanted to be able to go back, but alas you never really can. He just said he wants to not talk for a while and I resepect that. I am sorry though that he can’t do just friends because he is a good friend that I hate to loose. I do understand his situation though and hope that in the future has friends that are gals that aren’t going to blur the line as being more and that he is ok with that. 

8. Chicago Sketchfest was great. So many talented performers so little time. Plus you run into a million people you know there!

9. I’m doing ok on my goals for the year so far. Although it’s only been 2 weeks. I haven’t lost much notable weight (only about 2lbs) and saved a ton of money yet, but I haven’t given up or messed up big yet either.

10. My parents will get to meet Steve for the first time this weekend I am both nervous and excited at the same time. I am sure they will all get along, but I still hope it goes well in a slightly nervous way. Things are going really well between us and I hope that it continues. It is good to be comfortable and happy in a relationship and not have to worry about loosing it or something bad happening. It seems like I just trust this more than I usually do. Now we get to add the rest of the family to the mix and see if it holds up.

2008 Calendars

I bought my first 2008 calendar for next year already. Of course since I have been enjoyind Etsy.com so much I bought it from a crafter there. I am liking this letterpress look of paper products. It is 12 cards with letterpress patterns printed and embossed on them. I think they look best with individual ribbons hanging each card. Anyway they are a limited edition so if you like, you should go get one too before they’re all sold out!

I will most likley hang these up at home, since they are just too cute for work and then go get a “flowers” calendar from borders or something to bring for my cubicle. I need some basic calendar that I can write all over for my desk. Also there is a great post here about calendars available for 2008 online.

Public Bathrooms

I am a bit peeved with the bathrooms here at work. They are always awful and never clean. They have someone come in and clean but they really don’t clean. The faucets are always grimy, the doors are all grey with dirt and the whole thing smells. I wonder if it has always been this way? Is it just permanent? Or would a bottle of clorox fix the problem? Besides that there are some things like tile falling off and broken faucets that really need to be fixed.

I wonder how perfectly businesslike individuals can go into a bathroom and pee on the seat, on the floor and leave a puddle of mess around the broken sink faucet? I wash my hands and don’t touch anything on my way out and open the door with my elbow.

Seriously for what this building must cost in rent, the least they could do is put in some new Price Pfister faucets (they are seriously not that expansive), patch the tile and clean the bathroom from top to bottom once a month. Is that too much to ask?

Who is Howard Miller?

I have heard a lot about this Howard Miller guy lately. I was shopping the other day and saw some displays for grandfather clocks by him and the prices were pretty steep. They were kind of an heirloom type fancy clock that gets passed down from generation to generation. My parents have one and my relatives did too and we inherited that one as well. So what’s modern about a big tall clock that bongs? I guess it is about carrying on the tradition in a modern way. The designs aren’t always real traditional but yet they are very fancy. New Grandfather Clocks and Howard Miller clocks are a nice addition to a home and if I had a house I would be interested in buying one. And with daylight savings time happening now, a big clock that makes the time viewable and noticeable when you’re off by a few hours could be a great help. I know I have been running late and not able to figure out what time it is since. My whole day has been off. Plus both my watches had their batteries die and I have been without reliable time management all week.

Bedbugs are awful

A few years ago I noticed some red bites on my leg and thought for a while that I had brought bed bugs into my house via a trip and hotel stay I had for work. (this makes you rethink the process of packing and unpacking with the suitcase on your bed) It turns out that there was no evidence of any bed bugs in the house so I was lucky this time. And they don’t usually hang out in the midwest which made it a little less likley. They prefer to live up east for some reason. Now travel is the main reason you get them and pick them up in hotels that don’t clean well. They are also different than dust mites. You can easily see them and the symptoms of bed bugsand you can’t see dust mites at all. Dust mites are microscopic. I do have these, as alomst everyone does, and encasing my mattress in a vinyl cover has stopped some of my allergies. I still need a duvet cover that is miteproof although it will have to be fabric and washed every 2 weeks which is somewhat a pain. Anyway, I just wanted to post the differences between these since they are getting so much press these days and everyone is going through a panic about finding out whether they have them or not.

Wall decorations and accents

I was at a friend’s house the other day and they haven’t really decorated yet and I was thinking that it was probably hard to find good things to decorate with if you don’t want to just put up lots of family photos. And my parent’s hosue is an example of this, with old paintings from the 60′s and a metal brass bird thing on one wall partially obscured by the new flat screen hdtv. We just update things that break apparently, not the decor. Anyway I found this site with all kinds of wall decorations that are a good option rather than nothing at all. But it’s always good to see some in person first, measure the space and map out the size of the wall hanging with postits or something so you have an idea of where it will be and what it will look liek first and stay within your budget. My 2 favorite types of wall hanging type decor are mirrors and clocks. Both are functional and nice to look at. Mirrors open up a room and reflect a lot of natural light. Clocks are stylish depending on what you choose them to match and they help you stay on time. Never a bad thing. Check the one out at left. I love retro styles and this is a great kitchen clock. It’s really cute and of course functional.

Eco Christmas LED Lights save energy

Just like those squiggley light bulbs we have to use in our lights and lamps we have to change our christmas tree lighting to save electricity too. It’s just not worth the trouble of using energy that creates so much dangerous nuclear waste when we can save it and buy the same products that use less and are better for the environment. I am not a total green person but I did buy a sset of LED christmas lights last year and I liked them a lot. They’re actually brighter than the old kind and use less energy! I didn’t have to use as many strings either. So make it a green christmas in more ways than just the color of the tree. Give the new energy saving lights a try. Because christmas will be here before you know it.

Fall Colors – What I like about Autumn

I ahve been feeling that fall is almost here, and this weekend I think it hit. Here are some of my favorite things about fall:

1.  Walking through crunchy leaves on the sidewalk. Both the color and the sound are great.

2. The trees turning great colors and the falling leaves as you walk or drive by.

3. Pumpkins on everyone’s front step. Some carved around halloween and then the squirrels cart them off in pirces to be eaten.

4. The decorations on all the houses and all the candy in the office, although too much of both is not a good thing.

5. The temperature out. It’s perfect with a light jacket in Chicago, but not too cold yet.

6. The harvest moon and the indian summer sunset.

7. The beginning of a new Fall TV season and all the Oscar Hopeful Movies that are thinking movies rather than gratuitously stupid entertainment.

8. Leaving the windows open so the cat can enjoy the sounds of the outside for a few weeks before it gets too cold.

9. Getting my pre-thanksgiving tradition of getting all my shopping done, and avoiding the cold and the crowds of the Holidays.

10. Little kids in costumes at Halloween. Big Kids in costumes aren’t as cute.

Have a great Fall.

Christmas Shopping already? Yes!

Yes, I am thinking about the holidays and shopping already. I have started to make a list of gifts for family and friends but what I actually get will depend on what is available as I save money across the next few months. I know that friends, parents, significant others, siblings and coworkers are hard to buy for depending on what they like and do for fun. I have always taken pride in being able to find unique gifts that are particularly fitting to each person and are exactly what they need and want. So this year should not be any exception. Here are some tips I use for always getting good presents for people I know.

First off, I use online shopping coupons any time they are available. You can do a google search for the store you need when you are at checkout and find what you need to save an extra 10% or get free shipping.

Second, I try and take note of anything that people are interested in as hobbies or sports to find something within the range that they would like. I also listen closely about if they need something mundane but important and they haven’t had the time or money to get it.

Lastly, if they are the person who has it all and nothing is of particular interest, or they live far away, I usually go with a gift card certificate for a store they like. Target Coupons, Old Navy Coupons and Amazon Coupons are always great for most people.

Organic Bedding And Home Products

Organic food has gotten popular in the past few years because of the feeling that pesticides and artificial additives and antibiotics in our food is really doing more harm to our health than good. I have shopped at whole foods on and off for about 6 years now. There is a movement to go beyond food though now. It is a mix of sustainability causes and health reasons that cause people to make the switch. Organic Bedding, Furniture and Toys are just some of the new products that are on the market that meet the socially acceptable needs of organic lovers. I also have heard about biodegradeable soaps and detergents. All these products help us change our ways of living a little bit more and to treat ourselves better and the earth.

Midwest Storms & Floods Ruin Homes

I live in Chicago and it has been raining for the better part of the last 3 weeks. And the big storms that came through Chicago on Thursday took out the power of about 300,000 people in the area. I have many friends without power right now, and they say it will definitley be a week to fix most of it.

What is even worse than loosing power is loosing part of your home to flooding damage. I have heard about friends and neighbors who had just redone their basement with 30K worth of work and then it flooded and they lost it all. The insurance only covered 5K. That sucks. One way you can protect your basement is with a good sum pump and a backup sum pump with a generator in case your power goes out.

If you have done that then the last step is the B-Dry system especially if you have a french drain system. It is a patented sealing process with plastic polymers that has been used in thousands of homes to keep water out of your basement. With all these steps hopefully your basement will be protected no matter where you live.

Martha Stewart’s Macy’s Line Sucks

I was downtown yesterday and had to use the bathroom so I went to the old Marshall Fields store which is now Macy’s and used the bathroom. There are few places you can find a public bathroom downtown so I appreciated that when I was running to the train after having drinks with some friends at the Park Grill in Mellennium Park.

I entered the store and ran straight into a Martha Stewart section dedicated to displaying all her furniture, bedding, dishware, place settings, glassware and kitchen products together. I would find this same type of taking over the store setup in 4 other locations while walking around. And the biggest suprise was looking at this stuff thinking, it’s not that great, and it even kind of looks cheap and crappy really. I used to like Martha’s stuff when it was from the web store in her site. It was pretty ok stuff that was unique that you couldn’t find it anywhere else.  She singlehandedly brought Jadeite back into style while reviving countless other early 20th century styles and traditions that the new techno generation had forgotten about when their grandmothers passed away. And it worked, it reminded us of a classier time and a more elegant and self crafted way to live. You knew what was in the food you ate because you made it from scratch, you didn’t throw out furniture you refinished it, you didn’t have a boring green box lawn you planted some trees and a flower and vegetable garden.  It was what we all aspired to be.

Then her company went big time and since about 2005 (when this whole let’s be Oprah on TV thing started) her ideas have fallen flat. The magazine is still ok, but no where it once was. The TV show is a talk show and not a hot to show anymore. The web site has had more new faces and looks than Madonna in the past 10 years and every one keeps getting more difficult to navigate and the information is organized in deceptive ways to get you to click on adsense and other ads, rather than find, read and stick to the site for content. K-mart’s stuff was ok,we accepted that it was cheap-o, because it was from K-mart, but I didn’t buy more than 1 or 2 things. (and not the paper like bath towels) Her furniture line has been called a success, but while I think some of it is nice, I think all of it is grossly overpriced. No one pays that much for furniture unless they are millionaires or really stupid and like debt. So the ideas in the magazines I fell in love with in 1994 have long since gone away as Martha went to jal, came back and had a bunch of uber aggressive sales people running the company and magazine while young 20 something cooks and crafters came up with all the ideas. That’s where the wheels fell off the truck. It’s not unified anymore under what ”Martha” likes and wants anymore. It’s got too many people and too many goals to achieve that are counterproductive to one another. And, it is all in the name of the evil greedy need to increase REVENUE!! 

So then I heard about this Macy’s co-branded line online, I clicked to the Macy’s site and saw that the stuff looked ok-ish but not really matching or complementing the original Martha Stewart green jadeite plates and silverware I have at home.  I didn’t go any further then, because I don’t really ahve extra $ for buying more home stuff when I have more dishes and bedding than I alredy need at home and I didn’t see anything until I ran smack into it at Macy’s last night.

What I saw was some very nice displays but some very cheap chinese made stuff. The plates and dishware is thin and very breakable although it costs $8 dollars for a cereal bowl. My original Martha bowls I think cost 3 or 4 dollars each in the 2001-2002 days and they are thick heavy green glass. Why the markup on lower quality stuff? So it’s overpriced, nothing new huh? Some plates and bowls are somewhat pretty in white, but the patterned ones are just butt ugly. I don’t know what vintage pattern they used, but the colors and the gradient and the pattern should all be scrapped. I liked the ferns, but they are stupid expensive. Is this supposed to be fine china? I don’t think so…just every day dishes.

The Bedding was worse. I touched the duvet covers that had the 2004-ish coral patterns all over them in the signature beige, robins egg blue and green. They felt like copy paper. The towels were hard too, and had a very sparse loop pattern meaning they use less cheap thread in making the towels by spreading out the loops farther. Plus they weren’t even soft. There was no bounce or fluff at all. The sheets were papery too, and the shower curtain was cardboard. I am all for synthetic fabrics when they are soft to the touch, but who really wants to dry their face on cardboard? And at those prices???

The kitchen ware area was equally dissapointing. The melamie bowl sets looked ok, but were not in good color palletes and $30 dollars for something that cost about 2 dollars to produce? Are you kidding? They should be $12.00 and they would be flying off the shelves even in the bad colors.  The collapsable collanders are interesting but not that great. They feel cheap and that takes away from the innovation there. The pots and pans are just par for the course and the teapot was not any different than the chinese ones offered at target for $9.99 but it was $40 dollars. What gives? I am not spending that for the name on it.

Whant to save the sinking ship martha??? Here’s what you do:

1. Fire all these people aranging these short term liscensing deals with companies that put your name on their ultra cheap products made in China. They have ruined your brand and name. You need to reclaim it.

2. Fire all the people who designed your site for monetization and not for content. Hire some content people from the Chicago Tribune or New York Times, who are not influenced by the green devil and have a background in online content publishing, search engine optimization and social networking. (those moms like to network and share tips you know, but you’re not launching a whole networking site, so don’t get carried away)

3. Start recoiling your products into specific lines and quality levels that make sense. Entry level (Kmart) and exclusive posh stuff (your own high end stores in NY, LA and Chi Like a Tiffany’s of homekeeping). (Skip Macy’s)You shouldn’t be able to get your products everywhere, just one store for each level, and online through your site. Stop cobranding everything from fridges to cleaning products. They are dumb and only make your popularity shorter.

4. Make your products as good as the vintage stuff you find and love and the exclusive stuff you personally buy in Europe or here in the US. Make it in the USA if possibe, but if you insist on getting it on a slow boat to China, get it made of only high high end materials and in classic styles.

5. Take back the magazine yourself, and have someone else host the TV show, just make occasional appearances. After all this time you have gone from looking awkward and halting on camera to kind of ok, but wouldn’t it be more popular if Jennifer Garner hosted your show? Then get back to the idea generation, organization and management of your company. Bring back those things you discover and craft and not your staff. Please work with them and not against them though, because they’re tallented. Only put the things in your magazine that you want to jump up in your chair and tell everyone about. Stop trying to pass mediocre or crap off as amazing. Give us amazing like you used to. (the only thing that hasn’t slipped is the amazing photography that changed the way magazines were photographed for back 10 years ago)

6. And don’t be afraid of saying no to money. Money isn’t what life is about, neither is global domination. It is far better to have your company last decades because it is so dependable, high quality and consistent rather than make a billion in 5 years and then crash out of business and loose it all. Run your business with the old time traditions that you cherish. Yearly traditions with cosumers, your staff and your products. Plus you have more money than you will ever need, and those other people at your company do too. Please lay off these six figure boss management people who know nothing about home keeping and are just about maximizing profts. You don’t owe them anything. They are exposing your brand to the world as a cheap replicatable brand right now because these people have talked you into offering cheap crap with your name on it. Take control and take your company back soon or people won’t know who you are in 5 years or buy anything with your name on it.

Kohls hot or not?

I recently posted about Kohl’s getting Vera Wang (of bridal gown design fame) to design a line of clothing and bedding to be offered at their stores this fall. I wrote about how the trend of famous designers lending their name and brand to cheaply made low cost and low quality goods from China was a mixed bag. Sometimes, these designers come up with stuff that although it is cheap, is also much more hip than the usual Kohls, Target or WalMart fare. Other times it’s just the same cheap stuff with a fancier name on it and a lot of press buzz which fizzles after a while.

I got some frank comments from someone who works at Kohl’s and I apprecaite that. It is always good to see people who really believe in the company that they work for and are willing to comment about it publicly like that. I think his comments were very genuine and that the products they sell are liked by many people that shop there.

So, I thought hey, I should give Kohl’s another chance and go look this weekend. I heard from my mom that pillows were on sale and I needed some. We went on Sunday. (since my mom always wants to go shopping again, she tagged along) What I found was the same Kohl’s I remember. A lot of stuff, very tightly packed to keep the sales per square foot averages for the stores high. It was much cleaner and more organized than the last time I was in a Kohl’s. That is a huge step in the right direction. I could actually see what was for sale and get to it.

But the quality still seemed off. More cheap jersey fabric than I ever needed to see. More obnoxious fabric patterns than I could look at for long. More cheap vinyl handbags than I cared to smell. Most of the clothing was styles I wasn’t interested in, although there was a Daisy Fuentes solid color sweater top that was cute. The pillows didn’t work out, since I don’t like stuffing and prefer feathers, and they didn’t carry any feather pillows. (although I know that’s not a humane thing to buy, it’s a downfall of mine)

I found that there were some seemingly nice towels for buy one get one free for $13.00, so I go 2. (we will see if they keep their softness after they are washed a few times) Then I also needed an area rug for my kitchen. There weren’t any that were the right color and size and they all were $40-$50-$60 which is high for a rug. But they were buy one get one free. Which I don’t like when it’s something that is intentionally marked up to get you to a higher total sale by the get one free offer. I especially don’t like it when I only need and want to pay for one. So, we ended up with 2 pillow covers and 2 towels and it cost around $22.00.

Then we went to Target and spent $85.00. They had a rug that worked with the right size and color and it was $26.00. They had some cool new lunch bento box things that I had been looking for at the container store but were always sold out. They also had cat litter which I needed, and a gift (cute candle set) for a friend that just moved into a new appartment. I also almost bought some clothes, but there was too much already in my cart, so I didn’t. I just like target better. I spent almost an hour going around looking at everything. They just have nice cool stuff.

So all in all, Vera Wang isn’t going to really change my view of Kohl’s nor get me to shop there more. I think they serve a particular segment well, which is the volume shopper that has a lot of kids and is going to be buying 2, 3 or 4 of things anyway. They also are less style consious and less quality consious if  the kids are going to grow out of it in 6 months anyway. They like clutter, stuff and knicknacks. They also tend to be older, more ethnic and well, it sounds bad  but more than 1/2 of the shoppers that evening were obese people. Kohl’s may have more size options available, and kudos to them for that. The thing is, I didn’t think that the stuff there was a better deal, or a better looking or quality product. So, I am probably not going to go back for a few years. But I am probably not in their target demographic. I am a single yuppie that drives a Saab. When Target or Old Navy gets my dollars, they are stealing them from Banana Republic, Pottery Barn and Ann Taylor. I haven’t been in the Kohl’s demo since High School. Maybe things will change when I get older. Hey, my mom loves Kohl’s.