If you've ever felt intimidated by a stylish, attractive saleswoman, you're not alone. According to a post by Bee-Shyuan Chang on Stylelist.com, a new study out of the University of South Australia shows that women between the ages of 18-26 are less likely to buy from a sales associate who is more attractive than them. Of course, retailers — from Chanel to Abercrombie and Fitch — love for their employees to be the face of the brand. So sales associates tend to have a "look." But if that "look" scares customers away — making them think they're not good enough, not pretty enough to shop at the store — then what's the point?

On the other hand, the fact that the women in the study are young could mean that as we get older, we're more self-assured and less likely to give a crap about comparing ourselves to the salesperson. You go in, you get the shoes you want, and you don't think about her.

Still, the fact remains: Companies believe that women want to see other beautiful women. Our ads contain flawlessly Phoshopped celebrities, and stores like Ambercrombie banish anyone deemed less than perfect to the storeroom. PhD researcher Bianca Price says: "Retailers often think that beautiful is better… The solution lies in hiring women of all shapes and sizes, someone for each of your potential customers to relate to." Sounds like what we've been saying about magazines.

Attractive Salesgirls Could Turn Off Shoppers [Stylelist]

Let me explain why I hate Abercrombie & Fitch so much: when I was in the hospital for anorexia 5 years ago, I shared a room with a young woman who was so sick that she needed to be tube-fed 24 hours a day. She was at least 40 pounds underweight and looked like she was going to break. The week before she was hospitalized, she told me, she went to buy clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch, and the manager pestered her the entire time, begging her to apply for a job there, because she had "the look they wanted." Classy!

Abercrombie & Fitch rose to prominence during my high school years, when bland preppy clothing somehow became all the rage. Never before or since have kids in public school taken such a shine to khaki pants and puka shell necklaces. Walking into an Abercrombie & Fitch (or a Hollister, or an American Eagle) is a bit like walking into a super lame high school party; the stench of cheap cologne is everywhere, the lights are low, the music is bad and way too loud, and there is an air of pseudo-sexuality that screams, "I want to make out with you but I'm going to be reallllly bad at it!"

Abercrombie has made headlines over the years by releasing such charming women's t-shirts with sexist slogans such as "With these, who needs brains?" and "Blondes are adored, brunettes are ignored," (the shirts were pulled after boycotts sprung up) and by promoting racist t-shirts with lines like "Two Wongs Can Make It White." Somehow, the company kept going after these disasters, as the kids kept dropping their money on overpriced terry cloth pants.

But the recession is changing everything, and the kids are moving away from the Abercrombie brand. The store is struggling, posting a 34% drop in sales since last year, a number Caitlin McDevitt of MSNBC notes is "the worst among retailers in March."

"There was a time when Abercrombie's sexy ad campaigns and half-dressed salespeople were irresistible to teens," McDevitt writes, "A time when an endless line outside the flagship Fifth Avenue store curled around the block each morning. A time when the store effortlessly convinced young people that wearing two expensive polo shirts was infinitely more stylish than wearing just one. And the teens followed like lambs. There were days when A&F stock topped $80 per share, but those days have passed. Now, shares have sunk to less than one-third of that, and it seems that the embroidered Moose logo may be losing its cachet."

Don't worry, Abercrombie. I'm sure you still have stock of your racist, sexist t-shirts to cry into. And, of course, Rich Cronin will always think you are fly:

The Big Money: Retailer A&F Loses Its Cool [MSNBC]
Abercrombie Pulls Shirts After Girls Boycott [Think MTV]

• Cindy Crawford hasn't been back in the public eye for naught as of late — turns out she's launching a homewares line with J.C. Penney, which will be in stores nationwide this September.

Cindy's tablewares, window treatments, and bedding will be "moderately priced." Don't call her cheap, please. [WSJ]

• Men's boutiques are learning the simplest way to make a dude buy clothes: liquor him up. One, in the West Village, offers five different kinds of scotch! Ladies, let's not stand for this discrimination. [WSJ]
• I cannot improve, nor make sense of, this anecdote about Hermès announcing its marketing theme for the year, "Beautiful Escape." The French luxury brand had editors assemble at a wholesale food market outside Paris at 5 a.m., and then, "Wearing white smocks, the fashion pack was eerily silent filing through the giant meat locker — where a young woman in a tuxedo tinkled a gleaming black grand piano — but woke up in the fragrant cheese hall when a mouse-headed waiter glided towards them on Rollerblades offering a tray of cubed cantal. The tour ended with gourmet samplings - from oysters to crepe suzette — while Hermès' artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas led a crew of cyclists through the dining hall, capping off a quirky morning." [WWD]
• Elizabeth and James, the Olsen twins' second-highest-end line (after their abominably priced The Row) is doing just great. [NYDN]
• Roberto Cavalli is still toying with th idea of selling part of his company. The unpredictable designer met with Italian private-equity group Clessidra SGR SpA on Tuesday, apparently to discuss selling a 20% stake in the Cavalli empire, but there's no news on the deal because Mr. Leopard Print Sparkle Cleavage Lamé knows he won't get as much for his business right now as he would when the economy improves. Interestingly, Cavalli said he will keep working with Ittierre SpA, the company that is the sole contracted licensee for the Just Cavalli line until 2010, despite Ittierre's bankruptcy. When Ittierre went bust, it delivered Just Cavalli's fall line late and poorly constructed, forcing Cavalli to cancel the younger line's runway show just days ahead. At the time, Cavalli ranted angrily for minutes in a variety of languages to a roomful of journalists about his disappointment with Ittierre, before bursting into tears. But he can't afford, or doesn't want to afford, to break the contract. [WWD]
• Valentino says Michelle Obama will be the next Jackie O. Because that hasn't occurred to anyone else ever before. [E! Online]
• James Perse is getting tough on the use and return of editorial samples. Normally, when magazines use clothing and accessories for a shoot, these items are only borrowed — and generally not from off the sales floor, either, they're specially made samples that fashion houses keep just for sending out to magazine editors. (That's how come me and my ilk are allowed to punch stillettoes through skirts, smear lipstick on collars, and sweat through the hottest days of the year into boiled-wool coats — the garments are just going to be recycled into further editorial use.) Ordinarily, the labels are only too happy for their samples to see such abuse, because a credit in a magazine editorial is free advertising. Not so L.A. t-shirt maker James Perse! The label is going to start charging editors 90% of retail value for the use of their samples — part of the cost will be refunded if the samples are returned within 10 days of being sent out, but returns will only be processed through their L.A. headquarters, not any of their local showrooms worldwide. The first step to getting a James Perse item in your next editorial, stylists, isn't a call to the label's PR rep, but the filling out of a formal credit application. [WWD]
• Bruno movie trailer! [Mediaweek]
• Retail employment was down again in March. Specialty stores cut 6,200 jobs, and department stores eliminated 300 nationwide. [WWD]

The department store was offering $15 gift cards, apparently to all comers, at 10 a.m. sharp. There didn't appear to be any catch or minimum purchase — the format was turn up, pass go, and collect your $15. The giveaway seems not to have been announced on Lord & Taylor's website ahead of time, although if you do cursor over to those parts, you will notice a prominent banner advertising 20% off all online purchases, including already-reduced sale items.

The retail landscape has been changed in some more and some less obvious ways by the floundering economy and the contraction in consumer spending. High-end department stores, with their vast inventories, high overheads, extensive and expensive real estate holdings, large workforces, and, always, the pressure of shareholders eager for returns on investment, have seen the toll already. Lord & Taylor laid off 120 workers last October, let go an addition 170 in January, and made headlines again this week when news leaked that the department store chain had to institute a company-wide salary freeze for 2009. Fashion is kind of like the canary in the coal mine of consumer spending: impulse purchases of "unnecessary" new clothes and accessories are some of the easiest things to forgo in uncertain times. But $15 gift cards, just in the hope of luring someone in to shop? This is an unusual tactic, even in our scorched-earth retail environment.

Lord & Taylor Freezes All Salaries [WSJ]
Lord & Taylor Receives Money From Parent Company, Cuts Jobs [DDI]
Layoffs Seen At Lord & Taylor [WWD]

Relatively speaking, a 3% increase in same-store sales for the month of December 2008 isn't terrible only in the sense that it's not actually a decline — such as that experienced by the retail sector as a whole, where same-store sales shrank 0.9%, and by individual competitors like Abercrombie & Fitch and the Gap, whose December sales were down by over 20% on 2007's numbers. But let's not forget it's also not stunning. The previous year, American Apparel managed to raise December same-store sales by 37%, which makes 3% look flat. And it's simply not true that chain stores are uniformly blighted: Aeropostale and the Buckle's same-store sales rose 12% and 13.5% for December. If there's anyone "bucking the trend," it's those players, not Dov Charney, whose stock price is trading right now at $2.06, off a 52-week high of $13.25. (Or, I suppose, up from a 52-week low of $1.55, depending on how you look at it.)

For once, the company's financial situation is in the news, instead of its sexual sexy sexing ad campaigns or the sexifying sexual harassing antics of its founder. (Not that either of those things are likely to change — the company considers the former a key to its future growth, and maintains a $20 million insurance policy just in case the latter should happen to recur.) The American Apparel bottom line is the subject of a good, long, detailed story in Women's Wear Daily; reading it, I was reminded of Warren Buffett's quote about only finding out who's been swimming naked when the tide goes out.

American Apparel's early financial wackiness — a CEO who was prone to spending lavishly on inessentials like apartments and vibrators for favored underlings, a hamfisted, starry-eyed approach to expansion that saw 260 stores open in just a few years (for one of those years, 2005, the company did not actually find the time to replace the CFO who died of a [coincidental?] heart attack, preferring to delegate bookkeeping to young staffers), and a factory that, once it was properly managed, increased daily production from 32,000 pieces to 250,000 pieces without adding staff, all financed by a phenomenal debt load — meant that when the company went public, it could not do so via a traditional initial public offering. Instead, it was quietly bought by a shell company, Endeavour Acquisitions, run by a vaguely dodgy D.C. businessman and a financier from New Zealand, who took the company public while avoiding the scrutiny and regulatory oversight of an IPO. It was a way of buying time; things weren't going to change overnight — on the eve of the deal, a true to form Charney told a Wall Street Journal reporter the company's eventual choice for its new CFO was "a complete loser" and a real stickler for details — but the idea was American Apparel would slowly get its house in order. Then the economy as we know it more or less ended, and now WWD reports their balance sheet looks like this:

As of Sept. 30, the company had a total of $111.6 million in debt and $13.9 million in cash.

Leverage, thy name is Dov.

But the mere fact that the company's sales are not decreasing is enough to garner some praise in the current market. It has had to refinance with its two major creditors — Bank of America, which provides $75 million in revolving credit, and a private firm called SOF Investments, which loaned Charney $51 million — and agree to tougher terms including penalty fees, downgrading its credit facility by 200 basis points, and a commitment to limit capital expenditures to less than $17.8 million in 2009. (Which, for American Apparel, which likes to open stores by the baker's dozen, is some extraordinary thrift.) Technically, if it can't refinance with SOF Investments again by March 21, Bank of America's entire loan obligations will come due immediately, and, not to put too fine a point on it, if that happens there is no way they could pay up. But this is viewed as an unlikely prospect, because, in the words of retail analyst Todd Slater, "American Apparel is more valuable to them as a going concern than a bankrupt one."

If this sounds familiar to you, it might be because according to the Wall Street Journal, in 2005 — the year the chain opened 65 stores despite not having a CFO — then-primary lender U.S. Bank urged the company to seek additional financing. Unable to do so, American Apparel defaulted on its loan agreements. Because that was back when you could get a home loan with no income, no job, and no assets from a mortgage officer who was on meth, the loans were renegotiated and a new private investor was found (albeit one whose audit of the company, oopsie, uncovered American Apparel's reported growth figures for the year were off by 30%). Would the current credit market be so forgiving if the worst should happen again? I think we all know the answer to that.

American Apparel is a survivor, for now. But I don't understand why the reaction to WWD's story has been uniformly positive: 3% growth, a share price in the crapper, and tough credit terms that led one analyst to downgrade 2009 earnings per share estimate by 9 cents aren't exactly the marks of a paragon of financial health, even in this economy of lowered expectations. American Apparel more or less admits to running raunchy ad campaigns to distract customers from their admirable but irritatingly wholesome sweatshop-free American-made production; the company even pushed out employees it considered "WTO" and "so '99" in 2005 and 2006. Perhaps their sex-drenched image similarly distracts some financial reporters from maintaining perspective on the basics.

The Complicated World Of American Apparel [WWD]

Related: American Apparel Bares All [WSJ]
Ledecky's Black Check Is No Blank Slate [Washington Post]
Bucking The Trend [National Post]
Retail Winners And Losers [The Street]

Earlier: Working At American Apparel Is Not All It's Coked Up To Be

As times get tougher more desperate people are shoplifting for the first time. Richard Johnson from Indiana got laid off and attempted to steal a bottle of sleep medication but was caught and is now awaiting trial for misdemeanor theft charges. Johnson had never been arrested or shoplifted before and his desperate economic situation would make many people see his prosecution over a $4.99 bottle of sleeping pills as a little harsh. But retailers are also facing hard economic times and they are becoming more vulnerable to shoplifting:

“More people are desperate economically, retailers are operating with leaner staffs and police forces are cutting back or being told to deprioritize shoplifting calls,” said Paul Jones, the vice president of asset protection for the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

The problem, he said, could be particularly acute this December, “the month of the year when shoplifting always goes way up.”

Two of the largest retail associations say that more than 80 percent of their members are reporting sharp increases in shoplifting, according to surveys conducted in the last two months.

Compounding the problem, stores are more reluctant to stop suspicious customers because they fear scaring away much-needed business. And retailers are increasingly trying to save money by hiring seasonal workers who, security experts say, are themselves more likely to commit fraud or theft and are less practiced at catching shoplifters than full-time employees are.

Anyone who has ever worked retail knows that a certain amount of shoplifting is almost expected, and when an understaffed store is faced with an overwhelming amount of holiday shoppers, shoplifting increases dramatically. However, will prosecuting the shoplifters help curb what looks like an unstoppable cycle of theft? Probably not, otherwise more retailers would prosecute misdemeanor shoplifters (many shoplifters go unreported to police).

So then, should misdemeanor shoplifters with desperate situations be let off the hook, so to speak? Or should we always report shoplifters no matter what?

As Economy Dips. Arrests In Shoplifting Soar [NYT]

No question, anyone who's worked in retail sees it all: people trying to return worn things, stained things, torn things, battered shoes — and generally with a strong sense of self-righteous grievance. I was once at a Gap Body and watched a woman brazenly return a bra that she had obviously worn, washed, and put in the dryer — because she claimed it had shrunk spontaneously.

To some folks, I'm convinced this is some kind of deep game: a means of sharpening their using wits and guile. And that's to say nothing of those amoral souls who shamelessly buy, wear to events, and return without a qualm. Others regard buying, trying, deciding and returning as a valid means of shopping — fair enough in a large store, but hard on a smaller establishment's inventory. Then there are the guilty returns: stripped of the glamor of store lights and surroundings or the euphoria of friends' praise, people often blanch at the realization of what they've spent; that, much as they want to be the person in the floor-length velvet coat, they're not; that they have three of the same thing at home. Sometimes, in the cold light of your own bedroom, without a saleswoman's rationalizations, you realize something really is too small, or that the right underwear/judicious hemming/accessorizing really can't work miracles. Or there are those shoppers, initially delighted with a purchase, who return sheepishly the next day, deflated by a husband or friend's disapprobation.

I am one of those who finds returning difficult: I am normally a decisive shopper and am mad at myself if I end up with something against my better judgment. I also feel a tremendous sense of obligation to the salespeople who help me and hate to imply they've failed in any way, or admit that I was so weak-willed as to not know my own mind. I have made the best of more than one bad purchase rather than deal with the trauma of a return, and then curse myself again for a neurotic coward. The sad truth is, in any case, that an increasing number of small stores have store-credit only policies, so it can be impossible to undo your folly completely. In my case, too, there's often an organization deficit: I am bad at keeping track of receipts and the mechanics of returning an internet purchase are completely beyond me.

The solution is obviously careful and thoughtful shopping, budgeting, and if necessary, prompt and courteous returns. But such is not human nature — and for a real shopaholic, like those in the Post, maybe it's got to be a gradual learning curve; stopping cold-turkey would simply be too painful? That said, however embarrassed I might be to face a clerk, I would be twice as humiliated to have my boyfriend do the dirty work. Even if I had bought a dress final sale three months in advance knowing my body was going to be completely different. Cause, you know, that would be totally reasonable.

a href="http://www.nypost.com/seven/11142008/gossip/pagesix/a_job_for_guys_138567.htm">Madison Avenue Stores See Huge Increase In Luxury Goods Returns [NY Post]

They took away some of the off-putting marketing messages, replacing this kinda militant line about the right to "reproductive self-determination" from their Mission Statement and replacing it with something about how they want to "leverage strength through our affiliated structure to be the nation's most trusted provider of sexual and reproductive health care" that sounds like it was generated by a corporate Mission Statement algorithm. In many markets a third or more of the clients even have health insurance!

One thing that isn't mentioned in the piece is the uptick in "medical" or pill abortions, which generally cost as much as surgical abortions but have got to be wayyy more profitable...in fact, I'm sure they're probably considered the "cash cow" of the whole industry, not that the industry generally talks about itself like it's about to go public on NASDAQ. Anyway, as you can imagine, mom-and-pop abortion clinics are grousing about Planned Parenthood's Wal-Marty tactics and lowering their prices and the whole thing would be another great chapter in my forthcoming book "Why Normal Countries Socialize Their Medicine Kthanxbai" except, hello, that book would be wayyyyy too long for me to ever finish the proposal.

Planned Parenthood Hits Suburbia [WSJ]

Related: 'Miffy' Helps Make Abortion A Private Affair [SF Chronicle]

Earlier: Experts Don't Understand Why Fewer American Women Are Getting Abortions

Gilly Hicks is a fresh new lingerie chain that claims to be from "Sydney." (It is not from Sydney! It is from Columbus, Ohio. What, do they hate America?) Either way, Gilly Hicks comes with a host of attractive promises — like a "bra library" featuring 40 styles — and from the looks of its website, it is much more likely to produce a better variety of non-padded bras. But it has some un-attractive (and allegedly racist!) backers: Abercrombie & Fitch. Also if you go to the website and watch their video you will feel kind of dirty because it is total porn.

Also if you got half of those references, uh, you're a nerd.

Victoria's Secret is "Too Sexy", Claims Chief Executive [WSJ]
Abercrombie Bets On Lingerie [WSJ]

How gross are the testers? Which ones are safe to try?

Well, testers in general are always sort of borderline gross. This is why you should get a sample from a Sephora cast member whenever possible. We have drawers and drawers full of them, and every client is supposed to leave the store with three samples. Lately we've all been living in fear of being "shopped," which is when someone working for the company poses as a client and then reports back to corporate about how the cast member did. If someone won't give you samples, that's really fucked up of them first of all, but it's also a big company no-no. This gets tricky with Color World. Makeup samples are harder to give out, but we have a few, so you should always ask. But the testers are always going to be the testers and people are always going to do what they do with them no matter where you are. I've seen people do some really gnarly things with the testers. The best is when they stick their dirty fingers right into the pots of face cream and rub it all over their faces in huge amounts in the middle of the store. Sometimes the jar is getting kind of empty and they're all in there trying to dig it out. People who are sort of possibly homeless-ish play with all the testers. I've seen tons of people pick lipsticks up off the displays and put them directly on their lips. When we see this, we're supposed to discreetly get rid of the sample and put out a fresh one, but you can't be everywhere at once so we miss things. We're also supposed to direct everyone to one of the hygiene stations with all the disposable applicators, but they don't always listen. That's also sort of why the hygiene station is there—so you can personally do something to avoid getting in on other people's nasty shit.

When will Fort Wayne, Indiana get a Sephora store?

How the fuck am I supposed to know? I am extremely busy working a register and stocking shelves and putting Prevage in my mouth. I have no idea. Call 1-877-SEPHORA. It'll get you somewhere, although I don't know where that somewhere would be.

What's the best way to get the cast members to actually help you instead of standing around talking to each other?

Ooh, they call that a "black cloud." Because we all wear black, you know, and if too many of us are standing around together, it's like we're going to rain on people's shopping experience. You shouldn't be having a hard time getting a cast member's attention or getting them to help you, and there aren't supposed to be black clouds out on the stage. Obviously black clouds happen, customer service is not perfect, blah blah blah. If you call a store and ask for Leadership, someone will very patiently listen to you complain, be really nice about it, and then probably hang up the phone and talk shit on you. Also, you're complaining about someone who is probably going to leave the company within six months anyway. This job is for children who like eye shadow. You might be able to kind of get some of them in trouble by doing this, but probably not.

What do you think about the Sephora brand eye shadows?

I like them. I use them. They have really pretty colors, and I like the texture of the creamier ones a lot. I think that sometimes, people expect them to be more highly pigmented than they are. They look like they're going to be these really bold colors, but then they go on a little more sheerly. If you want a more pigmented eye shadow, look for companies that are making those. MAC is sort of the gold standard for highly pigmented eye shadows... but I mean, MAC is no joke. Drag queens and movie sets use it. Highly pigmented is what they do. Definitely try stuff out on your hand before you buy it if you're not sure what it does. Or just return it. Sephora brand everything is kind of "meh." The brushes and stuff are cool, but the products are all really middle-of-the-line and not that exciting, especially compared to the other lines we carry.

Why are you so eager to stay at this job, get the training, and learn more? Are you an esthetician or just between jobs, or what?

Okay, what you don't understand is this: I got home from work a few hours ago and I feel like I just mainlined $3000 worth of the best drug imaginable straight into my brain. You would have to love products as much as I do to be able to stand working here. I give myself a facial every night. Ask me about my Kinerase collection. It's sick. No, I'm not an esthetician, yes, I am perfectly capable of holding down a better job. I just like my kind of crack. It's my shit. I'm working here to fuel my fancy skin care addiction. I just realized everyone who works here is eighteen. I asked them, "how can you afford to work here?" And they said, "I live with my parents." Even this woman who works here who is forty and divorced — she lives with her mom. We are all here for the same reason.

Have you always been addicted to beauty products?

Ever since I came down with adult-onset cystic acne about ten years ago. I am a very vain person, the type of person who will stay inside my house and not go into work and refuse to see my closest friends if I have a bad breakout. It is sick. But there is something so sad and homeless about acne. It just looks like something is wrong. That's why I love helping someone who comes in and looks like shit. There is a feminine joy I get from being able to say, here, I know a lot about this and I can help you. Because I can. I have dabbled in everything. I am hardcore. I will try your homeopathic aspirin-raw honey mask. I will take your supplements; I will spend hundreds of dollars on credit on fancy products and I will let you stick your acupuncture needles in me. I also don't pussyfoot around; I believe it's gonna look worse before it looks better. And I do not let obstacles stand in my way: at my lowest point — I can't believe I did this but at my lowest point I would routinely go to a dermatologist and get cortisone shots in my cystic acne. And I would watch where he stuck the needles and when he left the room I would steal a bunch of syringes and do it on myself at night.

Why does corporate Sephora call insults "gifts?" How do they get away with it?

Most of the people who work here are teenagers and they are happy to not be working at McDonald's. This is how they get away with it. As to the why of this issue, my best guess is that it's called a "gift" in an attempt to put a positive spin on what could be construed—let's face it, by anyone functioning normally as a human being—as negative feedback. They mask it with this new-agey shit like, "this is a gift for you to take to the future." Like we should be very glad that now we know our makeup looks like shit or that our shoes are fug, so that we can correct the situation and do a better job. Oh, also, Sephora is what we call a "values-based" company, which to my understanding means that we are not allowed to even say words like steal, shoplift, took, take, thief, what have you. Instead of loss prevention, we have "excellent client servicing." This means that we follow clients around, talking to them, helping them, basically watching them like hawks under the guise of customer service to ensure that the bad thing we're not supposed to say does not happen. So there isn't a security guard, no tags, nothing like that. Instead it's us, and I mean... our costumes don't have pockets for a reason, too. But yeah, we don't use negative terms at Sephora and "gift" is another example of that.

How quickly does stock move at your store? Do any of the items sit around on the shelves for a long time?

People are not feeling the Decleor skincare line. They don't buy the Bliss home waxing kit ever, either. We sell a lot of Perricone, but people seem to be kind of confused about the other cosmeceuticals unless I am here to enable them. Those are my favorite things to sell, but the names have gotten so technical for some of these products that people literally do not understand that oh, this is face cream. The department store brands don't sell... Clinique, Lancome, Shiseido, all of those. People can get those in other places so they tend not to care so much about them. Sometimes someone will come in and request a certain Lancome product or something, but for the most part, people are interested in the fun, new stuff. These products all have preservatives enough so that we can keep them on the shelf for years if they don't sell. Also, I'm not there all the time so it's hard for me to know exactly how much is moving in terms of a gross net. This isn't the kind of thing staff members are routinely consulted about, we're just told how much the store made and how much we are expected to sell for the day.

What's up with your fearless Leader, Cunty Claus? Did she do anything cunty this week?

She does some kind of cunty something every week, pretty much. This week I was at the store on a Sunday before it opened, and I mean, cast members use the front door just like everyone else so if that's locked, you're shit out of luck until someone opens it for you. So we're waiting outside in the cold, and by the time anyone remembered to open the door for us, we were all a grand total of three minutes late. I was the last one to clock in, and I was only three minutes late. Anyway, Cunty Claus took this opportunity to give all of us this terrible lecture at Touch Base, which is our opening meeting, and it's all about how she doesn't understand why we didn't call the store if we were going to be late, what are our excuses, we're late all the time, just a bunch of bullshit like that. I explained to her that we were only three minutes late according to the time clock and she launches into this whole big thing about how the time clock and the clock on the stage are different or something bullshitty. Basically she was just pissed we didn't hop to it in a big hurry freaking out over our jobs even though it wasn't even our faults in the first place that no one opened the doors sooner. She's on this extremely creepy power trip. Once she found me leaning against a display for what, a second, and she says, "We don't lean here. We stand at Sephora." What the fuck? Who says that? She's really into intimidating the cast members so that she seems more authoritative. I think she lives in a world where she has no power and any time she's not at Sephora, working, people like take their dicks out and wipe them on her face. But I guess Sephora is the place where she can avoid the Dirty Sanchez and so we're all three minutes late on Cunty Claus' beat.

How did you finally get rid of your acne?

Oh, that is a long story I will save for next time. But I literally know everything about anything having to do with your skin, so bring on the skin care queries. I am fired up and ready to fight your glands with you.

In Europe, retailers traditionally weren't supposed to hold sales. This has changed recently in some countries, but like, for years and years the government didn't let them mark down clothing. So while American retailers would over-order inventory from China by the shipping containerful, figuring that if something — boyfriend jeans? Editor pants? pleather — happened to take off, they could sell more of them at a retardedly inflated full price and get a better Christmas bonus. European retailers, meanwhile, were barred from law by generating this sort of waste. They were forced to simply become more efficient about monitoring what exactly was going to sell. This forced them to become more attuned to fashion while keeping prices at an "everyday low" level.

Then they came over to the U.S. and kicked the asses of all the bloated boring retail giants by offering cute clothes at reasonable prices. The thing is, do you end up buying more crap than you need now vs. the era of The Gap? Or less?

Pace-Setting Zara Seeks More Speed [WSJ]

Painfully well-reported — and seemingly corroborated by numerous anonymous comments on the magazine website — the story nevertheless tries to muster a bit of empathy for Luciano, a "broken man", who claims the allegations were part of a conspiracy by New York & Company — which had acquired his company and wanted to get rid of him — to undermine his authority. Other female employees defend Manganella, claiming generalized pervyness was just sort of part of his "avuncular" style and that New York & Company ran the boutique into the ground.

None of this, of course, is shocking. This shit happens throughout the world of retail, and I will tell you why: bad behavior runs rampant in the world of fashion, and a lot of people in the retail business see themselves as being in the fashion business — since, you know, they sell clothes. But the money in retail is even shittier than it is in fashion, and the chances of fame or glory or glamour are immeasurably lower. Meanwhile, the talent required to run a good chain store is more of a tangible "hustle" type talent, whereas in fashion it is more amorphous "creative" talent. I am not going to stereotype here, but one of these talents tends to be more gay and the other tends to be more straight. Meanwhile, the people doing the selling — whether models or cute sales clerks — are basically paid to be pretty. So anyway, like I said: problems. It's a vicious cycle. And to that end, here's the last line of the story:

Through it, he's seeking to void a noncompete agreement he'd signed with New York & Company. Because if all else fails, Luciano Manganella has a vision for a new business.
He says he would like to open a lingerie store.

Luciano Manganella's Final Sale [Boston Magazine]

• Wet 'N Wild is doing a line of mineral makeup. Thank you, Gods! Finally, a line of mineral makeup for the people who really are too drunk to wash their faces before bed and too old to feel comfortable doing this anymore and therefore willfully buy into the myth that mineral makeup won't seep into your pores in your sleep no matter how long it's been since you changed your pillowcase. Because I know a few of those people, and they definitely can't afford to shop at Sephora. [WWD]
  
• Oh noes! It is going to be a bad year for Volcom, according to an analyst. Volcom is like the Abercrombie & Fitch of skater boys and the girls who so desperately crave their affirmation, only their motto is "Youth Against Establishment" instead of "No Coloreds Allowed" or whatever. Confession: I secretly used to own some Volcom products. I just like the logo. Did I just admit that to you? Please forget that immediately. [Yahoo! Finance]

• It's also a bad season for the clothing companies that used to maybe appeal to your mom but somehow your mom is too cool for them anymore. Talbots is exiting some business, Chico's stock is in the shitter and Liz Claiborne is trying to unload its Ellen Tracy brand on someone because they're fucked too. [WSJ]
• But it was an awesome season for the world's premier purveyor of granny dresses and tapered stonewashed jeans! [Barron's]
• That fashion thief of London strikes again. Good heavens, where is the New Yorker piece on this person already? [WWD]
• A UK retail critic visits a Mexx store and finds a helpful staff but a website with "atrocious spelling." [Times of London]

I was led to a windowless security room in the back of the store, detained for an hour and accused of deliberately switching a more expensive item into a cheaper box. My stunned protestations and explanations were summarily dismissed. My driver's license and credit card were temporarily confiscated, I was told to expect a civil notice of a fine by mail, and finally, I was advised never to return to the store.Though no law enforcement or court was involved, I was effectively tried, convicted and punished for a crime I didn't intend to commit.

And to think just months ago her beef with the service industry amounted to:

As I lounge poolside at the One&Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabos, Mexico, the stream of goodies from smiling white-garbed staffers keeps coming: a cool misting spray with moisturizer, assorted frozen fruit pops, head and knee pillows, chilled towels, a soothing gel eye mask, bottled water. When a young man offers to clean my sunglasses, though, I finally say no: Thanks, but I just want to sit and read my book.

While detained, I emailed my husband on the golf course with the message "I've been arrested at Kmart" (just a little dramatic license) and called my stepdaughter-in-law to tell her I was OK.

*I met her once, full disclosure, at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel, where she identified all the important moguls in the room and wore an Hermes scarf. She was nice.

The Accidental Thief [WSJ]