SW Londoners with teenagers....

[deaddei]

Holister is opening in the Bentalls Centre.
How long will the queue be on the first day???

It's an empty unit next to Boots on the ground floor (according to the security man)

Is that the Abercrombie and Fitch type place? I walked past one in Westfield and was utterly bemused - people were queuing to get in and it looked pitch dark in there. I'm not long out of my teens but I didn't understand it at all.

I went to Hollister in Cabot Circus (Bristol) a few weeks back. DD loves it.

First time I went I had to hold the clothes 2 inches from my face to see the price (the whole place is lit by 2 40 watt light bulbs, it is so dark) and SHAMED dd (ha ha) by getting frustrated with the godawful design on teh shop and clambered through a spider plant in impatience.

Is good clothes, though, FAR CHEAPER than Jack Wills or Abercrombie, so don't knock it.

It is also staffed by the most beautiful and DIM youngsters known to man.

You ask a question, get a vacant smile and puzzled look in response, they go and ask another dumbass beauty, etc etc.

I went to Hollister in New York, walked out again because everything was behind a glass counter thingy with a person behind it, and it was dark. You had to ask someone to show you things. It was weirdy weirdy weird.

I am not overemphasising the darkness.

It is seriously pitch black in there.

I was walking round laughing to myself muttering 'what the bloody hell' whislt dd was silently pleading with me not to show her up.

Yes - one of the visceral pleasures of parenting a teen. You have the POWER of showing them up. Usually achieved by saying 'what on earth is this monstrosity' loudly whilst holding up a tshirt in Top Shop, or singing Dizzee Rascal songs loudly in Sainsurys.

I am now tempted to go, even though I have no teenagers, just to experience the stygian atmosphere for myself.

GOML has descibed it to a tee.
I actually asked in the Westfield one if there'd been a power cut.
You need a miner's helmet.
Good quality tees, but then at £20 they should be- dd has 4, and all have washed well.
The staff are seriously vacuous.
You can always have a reviving coffee afterwards Professor

T shirts etc are bruilliant quality. DD has got loads (which I steal) and they wash really well.

Cheap as well - 15-20 for a t shirt, 40 for a jumper.

Jack Wills would curl their lip at those prices - JW prices almost double of that of Hollister.

lol at miner's helmet

£20 for a t-shirt is not cheap!

No, I know it probably isn't. Everything gets skewed when held up against stupid motherhubbard shops like Jack Wills and Abercrombie.

I myself am wearing a T shirt from Sainsburys at the moment which cost me £4.

DD = £20 t shirts
Me = £4 supermarket t shirts

Summat wrong somewhere

miner's helmet That reminds me of the time I was looking round Cyberdog (during my misspent youth, okay?) and got confused by the fluoro lighting - walked straight into a mirror thinking I was approaching a shop assistant.

I remember Jean Jeannie from ye olden times (80s) - that was also pitch black with disco lights. You could barely see the stonewash jeans and plastic bomber jackets.

Having sneered at the queue every time I took my teens to Westfield, we went the other day and there was no queue (it was first thing on a Monday morning when all self-respecting teenagers are in bed). In anticipation of even more opportunities to sneer (I do like to sneer) I went in and despite myself came out with a top for my daughter and shirt for my son (and several bruises on my legs from bumping into things), murmuring 'That was cheap! And aren't they helpful!' (I know it's not cheap at all really but had expected jack Wills prices)

Yes! Hit knows the score. Yes you are probably conned into thinking 'christ that's a bargain I'll have two of 'em' due to years of painful conditioning by the hell that is Jack Wills.

I nearly bought my 14 yr old a £42-in-the-sale top in JW this afternoon in the same 'it was £98 so this is a bargain' madness. Rifling through rails of £69 sweat pants had shaken my confidence in judging a reasonable price to pay for a teenager's wardrobe. Luckily I came to my senses just in time and ran out of the shop before any damage was done.

Oh Hit.

We are evidently the same people.

I do excatly that. And then rummage in the sale rale at tesco and go 'ooh' because i have found a pair of cheap work trousers for a fiver.

Your teenagers dress better more expensively than I do. I must go and spend some money on clothes, quickly!

Guess what my nearly 14 year old dd is doing for her birthday?
Going (on the bus) with 3 friends to Jack Wills in Richmond- annoying the hell out of the assistants by trying everything on and buying nothing-spraying lots of perfume, and perhaps investing in a small blue and pink striped item just for the bag.
Then coming home for pizza.
I kid you not.
I'm throwing some money in for drinks while they're out- but how cheap and effortless is that.
And they are very excited.
These teenagers know how to live round here.

Same, GOML - and then my 14 year old has the nerve to criticise the way I look in my £5 from Tesco trousers! To which I reply 'It's all I can afford because I've spent all my money on YOU.'

But we were in M&S the other day and he asked me to buy him what to my eyes was a middle-aged man's waterproof jacket! I couldn't for the life of me understand what look he thought he was going for and kept asking him where he'd got the idea. I'm all for him breaking away from the usual teen uniform but suspect he had a very different idea of how he appeared from how he actually did!