If there was a museum of shopping history, it would be in San Francisco. They’d have a terrible time getting permits, but it would have to be here. This city seems to have a historical revue of shopping in America, including all of the retail experiments that went awry.
It’s no coincidence that the first pop-up store I ever went to was here. I thought it was a store that sold those cards that pop up into 3-D scenes of The White House or a jungle diorama. It seemed a little bit specialized, but what did I know? I came from a town where if you needed to buy anything, you had to go to a mall that had been in the same place for more than 40 years.
But here in San Francisco, we’ve got it all. We have Gump’s, which is an old-fashioned department store that seems to have gotten stuck in the loveliest of time warps. You’re greeted at the door by a guy in a tux, they deliver your packages to your house for you, and you can buy a notepad that costs more than my wedding invitations.
Shopping at Gump’s makes me want to wear a wool A-line coat with a mink collar, a jaunty little hat, white gloves and heels, and order a silver spoon to be delivered to little Harrison Rochester Butterfield III. So we’ve got that.
And then we’ve got the modern equivalent of shopping in a space mall on Saturn. We’ve got the ModCloth store.
In case you aren’t familiar, ModCloth is an online women’s clothing retailer. Their clothes are retro and vintage and possibly pre-owned; funky and fun and hip. Like other online clothing retailers, when you buy clothes from ModCloth.com, you take your chances that you’re going to get something roughly similar to what the Size 0.5 model is hanging off her collarbone.
Except San Francisco is so darn special, we get to see the ModCloth clothes up close and personal, and touch them, and try them on for size before we order them.
I’m not against the idea. Ordering clothes online is risky. And I don’t like risks. I don’t ride amusement park rides, I don’t buy mystery grab bags, I don’t gamble, and I rarely order clothes from the Internet.
The last time I ordered a dress online from a source with which I was unfamiliar, I thought I was getting a chic black chintz party dress with embroidery along the hem. I ended up with a dress that looked like a costume for Townsperson #4 from a 1960s musical set in World War II Europe. If The Sound of Music had had a funeral scene, this dress would have been what Liesl wore with strappy flats.
But I didn’t know what ModCloth was when I first stepped foot in there. It had appeared overnight, so I walked in just to see what was in there. I was greeted at the door by a cheerful 20-something who said, “Hi! Welcome to ModCloth! Do you know how the store works?”
I immediately put up my Shield of Sarcasm. I’m not impressed by stores that have their own unique way of pricing, sizing, purchasing or paying salesperson commissions. Of course I didn’t know how the store worked. It’s one of a kind and it had just opened.
So of course I said, “Yes” and breezed past her. I surprised myself by finding some good stuff right away. A sweatery-jackety thing that was in red and black buffalo plaid, a white blouse that looked like a third- or second-prize winner of my 20-year Quixotic quest for The Perfect White Blouse, and a pleather jacket. I plucked them up and found the door greeter and said, “Can I try these on?”
“Ohhhh, no,” she said, taking them from me and returning them to their racks. “You have to find one of the girls with a clipboard and she’ll explain to you how this works.”
Shopping Anger Level Orange! This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill.
I’ll give her credit, she did not say anything about the fact that I had falsely claimed to already know how the store works. And how it works, the clipboard gal cheerfully explained, is that you try on the clothes and then you decide whether you want to buy them. And then, now that you’re an informed shopper, you order them online.
“But I don’t get to take them home with me?” I asked, slowly taking the pleather jacket off the rod again, without losing eye contact with Miss Clipboard.
“No,” she said. “But you can order them online from here and you’ll get them delivered right to your door!”
But I don’t want to get them delivered to my door. I want to take them now. I already left the house. I already walked into the store. Please. I have money. You have the third-place Perfect White Blouse. Let’s trade, exchange smiles and call it a successful day.
It shouldn’t be this complicated. I want to support these new stores – the founder of ModCloth started this business from her college dorm room, for crying out loud – but she’s not making it easy for me.
For years I denied myself the pleasure of shopping at Chico’s, even after I had aged into that style and was able to afford their prices, because their sizes are wonky and I was too impatient to listen to the explanation. In an attempt to be more European or just a pain in my ass, Chico’s has its own sizing system. A Target size 4 is a size 0 at Chico’s. And a girl who is wider than she is tall can swear on a stack of Bibles that she wears a size 4 Petite at Chico’s.
Chico’s loves the idea of having a secret code that only their loyal customers are in on. Also I think after we leave the shop, they make fun of the customers who aren’t wearing prime numbers.
They might or might not be playing us, but they are definitely making us weary. When I shop, I don’t want to have to learn the secret language and think too much about how to decipher the size chart. When shopping, it’s enough that I have to remember where I parked, what those pants will cost me if I use my 20 percent off coupon, and whether we’re tucking in blouses now or still leaving them out.