Showing posts with label Pacific Place. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pacific Place. Show all posts

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Seattle Sandy's Fancy Fleece

Certain items in my closet I only wear to the grocery store. One of these is a red Patagonia polar fleece pullover. It's left over from about 1994, and is in great shape, but...it's fleece. It's a remnant of my 90s life, which wasn't a bad one, but it's gone, baby, gone (thank goodness).

Is there any way that polar fleece can still work? Today while wandering Pacific Place, I found living proof that it can. From behind I saw Sandy and another chic woman talking, and I first noticed the shoes: one had sand-colored oxfords with metallic gold heels, the other fantastic spotted socks. When they parted, I saw Sandy's full outfit: cobalt jeans, an olive sweater with lime trim, and an orange bag.

As I rushed the poor woman to request a picture, I saw the Patagonia tag: fleece! Not a sweater! Well smack me with a ham sandwich.

Sandy makes it all work by keeping it tidy and bright: slim jeans in whiz-bang blue, wowza-holy-cow sockies, and a simple bag in a color that hits your eyeballs like an Olympic Mountains sunset in August.

My particular likes about all of this:
  • If you're going to show some sock, don't pussyfoot around (ha!): go for it, sister
  • Do without the brazenly branded purses (the logo show & tell thing has always puzzled me); choose a classic
  • Pair a well-fitting fleece (nothing oversized & sloppy here) with things that make it serve as the complement: here, the olive color is the low tone that makes the jeans, socks, and bag the foci
  • I am steadfastly pro-orange
It also helped that the pullover had that lime trim; really set off the super-shiny silver earrings and necklace. She knows what works for her, she's keeping it carefree, and she wears her individuality with confidence.

Okay, it also helps that one of her daughters works at Coach (she was the one with the cool oxfords!), and the other at J. Crew. Waahh! Why don't I have kids who work in Retail Funland? Oh, that's right...I forgot to have kids.

So, ready to follow Sandy's lead and show everyone that good taste runs in the family?
Polka-dots are sold out (boo hoo!), but check out J. Crew's Chevron Stripe Socks:
Here's Coach's Classic Duffle:
And here are Sandy's daughter's Coach Jocelyn oxfords:

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Chute your pants at Hointer

I stumbled upon the Hointer popup store at Pacific Place today. It's where the Restoration Hardware used to be. After scanning the poster-sized write-ups from Forbes, Geekwire, etc., in the front window, I was curious about this minimalist space peppered with suspended pants (not pants with suspenders, though) labeled with QR codes.

The nice young clerk in the shop was very helpful when I asked him about the business plan; very knowledgeable dude, which is always refreshing. Here're the basics of shopping at Hointer:
  • Cruise around the store and find jeans you'd like to try on.
  • Use your smartphone to scan the jeans' QR code tag. (This requires you to download their app, which is available for iPhone, Android, and Windows). You can also ask a clerk to scan the tag for you, if you don't want to download the app or your phone is being used by your dog/toddler/grandchild. Another option: hold your phone up to the accompanying NCF (near field communication) tag.
  • The app asks you for your size, and you tell it the usual lies.
  • The item is added to a virtual shopping cart, and you can keep shopping, or click a "try on" button, which tells you which numbered dressing room to use.
Now, I think the best part of this is how your jeans get delivered to the dressing room. So if you don't want to miss the fun, be within striding distance of the dressing room when you click "try on." Because your jeans get delivered to your room down a chute in the wall!

That's right, a mechanized delivery system works its magic like tiny orphan hands replacing empty spools in a Victorian England cotton mill. My hope is that you feel free to sing Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" in a doo-dee-doo fashion while donning your fresh-from-the-robot-hands pants.

It's an interesting business plan: target customers who want to avoid the kerfuffle of digging through racks and shelves, and give the product 360° display space so people can picture what their bums will look like in the jeans. "Showcasing," the consumer behavior of snooping around a brick & mortar retail shop to check out products  and pricing before heading to the web to purchase, is giving both online and physical shops a run for their money. So this is an interesting idea that bridges those two shopping experiences.

One thing that Hointer has invested in is customer service. The two guys I spoke with where very friendly and helpful. So if you still want to interact with humans while you shop, Hointer's filling that need.

So what do you think? Is this type of shopping for you? Have you shopped at Hointer? What did you think?