RETAIL TERRORPY

FEELING LUCKY, PLANK?

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY HALF-DAY CLOSING

Todays young style kids got it easy. Everything’s on a plate including trauma free on-line retail. Back in the day clothes shopping could be scary, humiliating and even dangerous. In 1978, having tasted the fledgling Punk scene, Dave Carroll, off of The London Leather Man (click), was compelled to immerse in this closed, exotic and agro world. It took him three attempts to summon courage to enter Seditionaries, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s seminal boutique. “If you didn’t look right, that meant inside you’d have the piss taken out of you, badly”. Staffed by bona fide scornful punks, such as iconic Jordon, (dubbed queen of Punk) at best they’d address you in a confidence wrecking manner. “Trouble was, to get the look you had to go in, but no-one wanted to be singled out as a plank”. ‘Assistants’ became arbiters of punk acceptability. Scared to ask Dave just gawped at the parachute shirts eventually managing to buy an ‘Anarchy in the UK’ muslin top and Chaos .“That place was fucking terrifying, but you wanted more of it. It was Addictive”. Aside from the precious punk style codes, the shop staff there could deliver that craved, tribal approval fix.

IN AMONGST IT

PUNK CARROLL IN DESTROY, LEATHER & STUDS

With high-end misappropriations of garments comes ‘face don’t fit’ factors, such as those encountered by sophisticated Eighties B.C.F.C. Football Casual Ben on visits to niche boutiques. “In shops like Christopher Barry staff were so shitty is was like gladiatorial combat even getting buzzed in. They were totally vile if you didn’t spend”. First in premium sportswear emporiums, also Harrods, and then later in earlier designer shops staff condescension was afforded by their exclusive retail rites to brands like Armani.  At luxury sportswear shops if you didn’t fit their tight profile things became uncomfortable with assistants openly sussing possible spending power and status as thief. “There weren’t so many buyers for this exclusive stuff- targets were limited. Especially in the “Italian Connection” on Park Street they watched us like hawks. Are they thieves? Spend or nick? They’d decide pretty quick”.

CRAMPING AT THE BIT

ORIGINAL GUCCI DOOR POLICY

Striving for ‘the right’ codes doesn’t just lead to enduring excruciatingly high prices. There are other barriers. Gucci’s snaffle loafers were £185 in 1989, and pilgrimages were made there to gaze at the dainty, camp creations displayed in a two tier round wooden display unit of shoes that we dubbed “The Gucci carousel”. Access to the upstairs men’s department was marshalled by starchy elderly Italians akin to snooty head waiters, who’d reluctantly concede entry then patronise you as if some terrible embarrassing mistake had ensued- a world apart from the well-oiled welcome one gets in prestige designer giants today. Despite chill receptions I eventually landed a pair-via a student poverty crisis loan. Pah!

WINDOW DISTRESSER

HARRODS BLAST, 1983. NOW THAT IS SCARY.

Early Nineties Duffer Of St.George on D’Arlbay Street, a hip enclave in itself within Soho, was staffed by a clique of Jazzuals who cast aspersions and sneers from beneath razor cut nouveau Mod hair dos from Fish, Soho Ace Face Paul Burfoot’s barbers (click) a few doors down. I can’t believe I bought into this hierarchy- but that’s part of the deal when you’re twenty. Parallels to visiting rough Irish pub where drinkers gets short shrift from surly, deadly efficient bar staff, or authentic Parisian surliness from waiters, these human touches generate additional cult cache. Granted current global-craze brands like Supreme’s drop system does induced queuing road the block from silly o’clock but what sort of passive, submissive badge of honour is that? Effectively those drop-centric pieces say “I’m a dickhead who bought into the mass hype and stood in line like a pillock on Peter Street for hours.” Cool, or just a bit chilly?

ATTITUDE ON D’ARBLAY

BARRIE.K.SHARP - DUFFER OF ST.GEORGE

My now much older style peers also share upmarket anxieties administered from Browns via staff who’d shamelessly shadow you around the shop uncomfortably close, or being shamed at Quincy for low/no spend situs. There was glib judgements of ones label roster credibility at Jones on Floral, while at Voyage staff often simply acted like you didn’t exist when waiting outside.

MY FIRST SHOP JOB

WAS MORE UPMARKET BACK THEN, MIND.

KEYNSHAM HIGH STREET. STUCK IT IN FOR CONTRAST,

BUT I DID WORK THERE IN EARLY EIGHTIES.

Other style tribes suffered retail trials, not only from staff. A Nineties UK Garage head had ordeals shopping in Prohibitos aka ‘Probes’. “As a teen I’d go with hundreds down my sock- in case bigger boys taxed you nearby” Stretch, from Lisson Green earnestly recounts.  “Inside it was equally bad with top-shotters and major players from the endz looking prang to take your purchases”. His crew would bring decoy bags for safer journeys home. Rare pieces gleaned here really did amount to rites of passage, adding to the payoff and credibility. “Shopping then was a fully adrenalised experience for us. You’d reveal your sock money and dust quick as possible”.

ORDERLY QUES

FROM PROHIBITO CREWS

Validation seems like life and death when you’re young*, be it penetrating a tribe or navigating treacherous, alien worlds, and even the perils of aspiring retail goals of the past. Now the homogenised, pleasant façades of shop staff bely the soulless mechanism of global commerce, conceived to efficiently broker stripping the broadest spectrum of customers of the most money. Fine. But to me the the lack of edge echoes current style culture’s membrane thin credentials and woefully frail substance.  Difficult shopping scenarios were often part of the rite of passage of package, yet now waiting to jump on the proscribed piece for the much hyped ‘drop’ one of the rare challenges. Now most style enthused youth can simply click and select delivery slots, a stark contrasting story of guts, guile and glory offered via negotiating conflicting human positions. Granted, you don’t any get agro off an algorithm, but you don’t get to hone your own stylistic expression without IRL connection within subculture’s edgier melee, either.

Stubbs out.

*Doesn’t necessarily wane with age, either. Eek face emoji.

ARE YOU BEING SERVERED?

OR HAVE YOU BEEN ACTUAL SHOPPING?