Thursday, February 19, 2004
Continuing on fashion in the U.K.... So the daughter while in London fell in love with MANGO -- a clothing store which is located almost everywhere in the world EXCEPT America i.e. Ankara, Aruba. Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Guadalupe, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldavia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
MANGO does a really good job knocking off designer clothes and selling them for great prices (well this would be a true statement would the dollar be more robust). MANGO's retail locations are beautifully appointed and buyer friendly. So why isn't the gorgeous store MANGO in America? It could have something to do with their labor practices, although I haven't noticed many American clothing manufacturers showing much compunction about taking labor off-shore to China where workers earn a meager .40 cents an hour to make a pair of jeans. But whatever. Maybe MANGO's reservations into entering the American market are based on other marketing considerations. I could imagine, for instance, that unless MANGO changed its sizing policy, American women might unhappily realize that they aren't really a size 6 after all thanks to American clothes' manufacturers fudging the fitting so that women are made to feel thinner than they really are i.e. I fit into a size 2 U.S. GAP pants but couldn't get my toe into a size 2 in London. In MANGO I am a size 6 thank you. MANGO probably figures that if they had to make anything bigger than a size 12 (which they would have to do if they wanted to market to American customers) then why bother? Their gorgeous sexy clothes would look like crap on a woman with thirty-plus-too-many-pounds spilling over and out of the soft-pink, Channell-styled mini-skirt and cropped skimpy t-shirt by MANGO. To make matters worse, no American women would buy into the obligatory sexy stilettos to complete the outfit. No way the Nike-sneaker-trekking Ami's (let alone the Birkenstock ladies) are going to consider that. And finally and because I'm in a bitchy American-women-bashing mood... Who would want to put these sexy clothes on American women who invariably carry themselves like they are trudging across the dusty Great Plains?
Welcome to 80% of the women I encounter on a daily basis while commuting into what is considered a sophisticated metropolitan city in the U.S. Never mind the men. This on a subway car that is dinged and dirty with an atrocious-sounding woman announcing the next stop. Except for the Aquarium, stations which were updated just a few years ago look like they never were. All in all, Americans and America's infrastructure are really starting to look third world country-ish if you ask me. Or perhaps a better analogy would be a sixty-year-old woman who has taken lousy care of herself over the years; she's out of shape and just plain dumpy looking. I mention all this because just having returned from well-outfitted London, it's so acutely noticeable.
With nation-wide deficits in almost all 50 states, it doesn't look like a major makeover for America's infrastructure is in the offing anytime soon. And frankly, I'm not sure I would trust Americans with the task of a make-over even if we had the money. I mean look what the flush 90's brought just to my little town -- eyesore energy-guzzling McMansions that have no proportion or context to the lovely 17th, 18th, and 19th century homes surrounding them. And, btw, the roads are still poorly paved and they still haven't buried the tangle of telephone wires in the historic downtown area.
Maybe the television networks could come up with a show similar to Extreme Makeovers on ABC. Aesthetically-sensitive countires like Switzerland or Italy could came in as consultants and help get America back on its aesthetic legs. This would be good for everybody's economies as tons of jobs would be created to fix-up potholes, dented trash barrels, sprawling ugly strip malls, falling-down manufacturing plants, rusty chainlink fences and the like. Who would pay for all of this? Advertisers and corporate sponsors. Think of all the Before and After pictures you'd have....
MANGO does a really good job knocking off designer clothes and selling them for great prices (well this would be a true statement would the dollar be more robust). MANGO's retail locations are beautifully appointed and buyer friendly. So why isn't the gorgeous store MANGO in America? It could have something to do with their labor practices, although I haven't noticed many American clothing manufacturers showing much compunction about taking labor off-shore to China where workers earn a meager .40 cents an hour to make a pair of jeans. But whatever. Maybe MANGO's reservations into entering the American market are based on other marketing considerations. I could imagine, for instance, that unless MANGO changed its sizing policy, American women might unhappily realize that they aren't really a size 6 after all thanks to American clothes' manufacturers fudging the fitting so that women are made to feel thinner than they really are i.e. I fit into a size 2 U.S. GAP pants but couldn't get my toe into a size 2 in London. In MANGO I am a size 6 thank you. MANGO probably figures that if they had to make anything bigger than a size 12 (which they would have to do if they wanted to market to American customers) then why bother? Their gorgeous sexy clothes would look like crap on a woman with thirty-plus-too-many-pounds spilling over and out of the soft-pink, Channell-styled mini-skirt and cropped skimpy t-shirt by MANGO. To make matters worse, no American women would buy into the obligatory sexy stilettos to complete the outfit. No way the Nike-sneaker-trekking Ami's (let alone the Birkenstock ladies) are going to consider that. And finally and because I'm in a bitchy American-women-bashing mood... Who would want to put these sexy clothes on American women who invariably carry themselves like they are trudging across the dusty Great Plains?
Welcome to 80% of the women I encounter on a daily basis while commuting into what is considered a sophisticated metropolitan city in the U.S. Never mind the men. This on a subway car that is dinged and dirty with an atrocious-sounding woman announcing the next stop. Except for the Aquarium, stations which were updated just a few years ago look like they never were. All in all, Americans and America's infrastructure are really starting to look third world country-ish if you ask me. Or perhaps a better analogy would be a sixty-year-old woman who has taken lousy care of herself over the years; she's out of shape and just plain dumpy looking. I mention all this because just having returned from well-outfitted London, it's so acutely noticeable.
With nation-wide deficits in almost all 50 states, it doesn't look like a major makeover for America's infrastructure is in the offing anytime soon. And frankly, I'm not sure I would trust Americans with the task of a make-over even if we had the money. I mean look what the flush 90's brought just to my little town -- eyesore energy-guzzling McMansions that have no proportion or context to the lovely 17th, 18th, and 19th century homes surrounding them. And, btw, the roads are still poorly paved and they still haven't buried the tangle of telephone wires in the historic downtown area.
Maybe the television networks could come up with a show similar to Extreme Makeovers on ABC. Aesthetically-sensitive countires like Switzerland or Italy could came in as consultants and help get America back on its aesthetic legs. This would be good for everybody's economies as tons of jobs would be created to fix-up potholes, dented trash barrels, sprawling ugly strip malls, falling-down manufacturing plants, rusty chainlink fences and the like. Who would pay for all of this? Advertisers and corporate sponsors. Think of all the Before and After pictures you'd have....
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