Who is J. Crew?

When I was in college I used to go to this great housewares store in the Syracuse mall. It had really cute plates and bowls in bright patterns and chunky light green tumblers made of that rustic glass with tiny bubbles in it. Woven cotton placemats and items that couldn't fit on the shelves were displayed in wicker baskets filled with straw all around the store. As a college student I wasn't really in the market for all of these goods, but hubby and I would wander around planning our future home and I'd pick up a votive holder or two for my room back at the sorority house. You might actually know this place, it was called Pottery Barn.

Now that you've picked yourself up off the floor, I will assert that I am telling the truth. I'm sure a few of you, like me, remember PB's humble beginnings, before they started selling all-white dinner plates and over-priced furniture, before they had a catalogue for very member of the family (Pottery Barn Kids, PB Teen) and began selling baby clothes. Thinking about the disparity between the store as it currently exists and the place that used to sell pink and yellow checkerboard plates I began to wonder when did we get so fancy? And PB's not the only store that's gotten too big for it's britches. It seems to be an epidemic.

Clothing stores are also forgetting their humble beginnings and movin' on up. Banana Republic, purveyor of cashmere and silk frequented by metrosexuals everywhere is the biggest poser in my mind. There is no way I'm buying a T-shirt for $22.50 from a store that had a real Jeep driving through the front window of their stores. Get it? It was a "banana republic"! Now I'm supposed pretend I never hacked my way through all those fake banana trees to by natural cotton T-shirts with a tiger on them or a pair of ill-fitting khaki shorts? Get over yourself.

Preppy meccas Gap and J. Crew also suffer from the same amnesia. When I was in eighth grade Gap was the place for sweats. They had walls filled with sweat shirts with ribbed hems just right for making the upper torso look as balloon-like as possible. And sweatpants - do kids these days even know what those are? - high-waisted with elastic cuffs ever so flattering on the pear shaped pre-teen. J. Crew was my source for "college" clothes back in the day when all they had were rugby shirts and rollneck sweaters. I bought a bushel of those sweaters and shapeless pleated, yes, pleated, corduroys apparently in an effort to make myself look as ridiculous as possible. Now when I shop at these stores I am faced with fitted T's and "skinny jeans" (I guess the Gap has something against the pear shape in general) and the madras button down I wore to death in college has now been replaced by a handbag with tortoise hardware made of this material - which I bought in a fit of nostalgia. J. Crew used to sell plaid kilts and now I'm supposed to buy a wedding dress from them? I think not. Well, maybe.

I wonder what tourists from other countries think if they happen upon these stores. I envision a Japanese tourist, looking over linens and asking her husband, "Why do they call this place a 'barn'?" or Germans asking themselves, "Why is this store named after a small country that is politically unstable and whose economy is dominated by foreign companies and depends on one export such as bananas?" (thank you Google dictionary!). J. Crew once had its ties to that preppy college sport, but now looks as athletic as RuPaul in a football helmet. And the Gap? Apparently the name refers to the "generation gap" as the founders had trouble finding blue jeans where their "square" parents shopped back in the 60's. It's safe to say this name no longer has any meaning as I see overly nipped and tucked fifty year-olds shopping for inappropriate jeans there all the time.

Despite all my bitching I do still shop at these stores. In fact, I benefit greatly from the fact that they've changed with the times or I'd still be wearing those pleated corduroys. I just want some honesty. Maybe they can have small sections in the back of their catalogues devoted to the merchandise that got them started years ago. God knows these days I'm in the market for a good pair of sweatpants...