Given an unlimited budget, I would have a bunch of black pants, waistcoats, white shirts and ties, and/or the whole kit in tweed, or if I am going out for fun, then I want sporting shirts of various kinds depending on the mood, Levi's 517s, and a denim jacket. I also want a big black scary coat which can either be a Duster or a Crombie Coat but in almost all circumstances, I want a pair of nice boots¹.
At the weekend, I found the task of looking for nice boots to be like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube suspended in a pot of honey. What should be a relatively easy task is made all the more difficult by a very stupid environment.
I despise shopping at the best of times. Shopping centres are a swirling mass of humanity which sways from side to side with the indecision of a herd of brainless sheep. This is now doubly dangerous with the threat of COVID-19 lurking in the background like an unseen madman. However in spite of my annoyances, I completely understand that this is fun for lots of people because it satisfies the same kind of dopamine centres as going on a hunt might. Finding that one thing in a place with a million choices, is like trying to find a needle in a haystack; however I don't like that as a task. I would prefer to find my needle in a haystack with a threshing machine and an industrial electromagnet; or even better, just sell me one needle: it shouldn't be that hard.
I also completely understand the struggle that women have (as a technical problem) because there is no such thing as an average person and when you have inny-outy parts all being inny-outy, then that poses a challenge to find something that fits. However, I am a chap and my requirements are insanely standardised; to the point where I will fit into exactly what I did when I was 19 and when it comes to things like pants, shirts and boots, I also want exactly what I did when I was 19. I want size 39 shirts, 77 pants, size 9 boots and if I want to be fancy, size 58 hat.
Given that my requirements for boots haven't changed in more than a quarter of a century, you'd think that buying a pair of nice boots would be a relatively simple task. Nope; not a bar of it. Buying boots is a decidedly shambolic process that makes me question the sanity of the cosmos.
Where I live in the bogan western suburbs of Sydney, retailers have almost entirely abandoned the idea that anyone out here wants nice things. Shops generally have lots of floor space devoted to women's fashion and in lots of cases, the entire floor space devoted to women's fashion and men's clothing if it is considered at all, is assigned to a corner. Now I would expect given that with such limited floor space, that the retailers would keep on giving us things that we'd like to buy in order to shift product but I am convinced that retailers deliberately stock products that are hideous, in order to make sure that men leave as quickly as possible. The ultimate expression of this is 'Bored Husbands' Café' at one department store because they know that they offer a paucity of stock for men and that they need somewhere to go while their significant other has a lovely time in the store.
Mostly the kinds of shoes that I found in the shops were either trainers, flat shoes, or work boots. If I had wanted a pair of trainers then I would be spoiled for choice but for a simple pair of boots I may as well have been asking for a Swan Kebab² on the moon.
I visited thirteen shops on the long weekend³ in the bogan western suburbs and successfully managed to fold my money in half and put it back in my wallet on every occasion. Why? Because as a consumer who has the power to vote for what I like through the power of the cash register, I get to decide what I will buy. That supposed 'Law' by economist Jean-Baptiste Say (funnily enough called Say's Law) which when reduced to its simplest terms states that 'Supply creates its own demand' is complete and utter hogwash if people don't want to buy the thing in question.
Eventually I ended up coming to my senses and resolving the question of finding a new pair of boots in exactly the same way as I did when I was 19. I went to Raben Footwear in the city; wherein I was served by a chap in his 60s wearing a Ramones t-shirt; which looked like he'd bought it new in 1979 and has been wearing it since.
I don't know what if anything that this says about me but the fact that my preferences for clothing hasn't really changed in more than half a lifetime but I guess that it indicates that perhaps I am not really all that different. Given that in this sample size of one that preferences haven't changed, why then do people who expect to sell me stuff assume that I will buy something vastly different?
Moreover, if I am not that different then what do the modern day equivalents of me do? If consumers can be sorted into tribes and cohorts, then there must be people like me elsewhere in the cosmos⁴ who also can not find nice boots.
¹No, this doesn't make me a goth. I don't think that I would do all that well as a goth, emo, or punk. It all seems like too much effort.
²Swan Kebab is either a kebab made from swan meat or the name of a 1950s French pulp fiction detective.
³actually a genuine number and not hyperbole for comedic effect.
⁴if there is someone else like me in the cosmos, they have my pity, awe, and confusion, in equal amounts.
No comments:
Post a Comment