retail right and wrong

For years, we went to shops and stores to look, to see what we’d chose if we could have our hearts’ desire, and dream

even if we couldn’t possibly afford it.   Shopping was at least as much wishes as wallet.

As London is being torn down and built anew simultaneously, I shelved my first shopping choice (Harrods has the brand I want, the only reason for me to go past the door) because you can’t get anywhere easily.  Instead I went to

Space NK’s sparkly deluxe flagship store, on the off chance.   Nowadays I am a cynical shopper. I exist to have a nice surprise. 

They stocked the brand I wanted but everything offered is laced with hyaluronic acid, booster, brightener, anti-ageing agent, SP100 – promoted to the power of ten with that oversell that is the hallmark of modern life.   Miracles to be wrought with cream

and the prices are eye watering.  I asked for what I wanted (a pure cream designed for children, half the price).  They don’t carry the children’s range (in one of the few postcodes in London where the parents could afford it) and no attempt was made to get it for me.  

In other words, I can only buy what you want to sell me.

I looked in Boots, a shadow of itself: I looked in M&S, nothing I wanted. I don’t buy cheap for the sake of it if there is something I know of for a bit more that I know will work. I looked in a second bigger Boots which had some of a popular range I like but again, they could only sell me what they had.

So I went to Harrods, climbing round the road works, where I met Cesca (the last two syllables of Francesca) who produced what I wanted, told me it was unlikely to continue long in manufacture (I am writing to the company),

French name, German owner, US office!

and walked me over to the only alternative she could think of.  Exemplary.

When I asked the assistant of the recommended range if she had anything I could read, she produced a one day sample (good manners forbade that I should tell her than almost anything works once, so not impressive) and when I looked at the leaflet she gave me, it is in Arabic.  Sadly beyond me.

The very agreeable young woman whose advice I sought on the Chanel counter told me they had endless problems with supply – and although she could show me samples of something I might like, they weren’t actually in stock. And she was politely rueful about the world famous brand.

I had heard the story in another big store.

I came home to an article promoting a new Steven Spielberg series (also a world famous brand) called Masters of the Air, described by a prestigious war writer as “as near to real life combat as you can get.”  Watching Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) was described as like experiencing the Second World War.   You don’t have to sell me a war.

We’ve got Ukraine slogging it out, currently discovering how distasteful international politics can be when you go out of fashion and the Israel/Gaza confrontation currently playing at six of Hamas, half a dozen of Benyamin Netanyahu.  Ghastly.  While the Yemeni war has had a tenth bloody birthday.  And all the others we never talk about because they don’t involve us, or very many of us.

Three years ago, I was solicited for a contribution to wikipedia which I often find a good starting place.  The request was short, polite and realistic.   I paid up and was thanked.  If you put this year’s appeal in fiction, it would be over the top.  When I declined I referred to it as “hyperbolic sub-sales cant.”  Not brief, not dignified, the written version of that unending harangue with which so much of media is characterised

Don’t the editorial staff (written, radio and tv), the sellers of much reduced amounts of advertising and the sales and advertising staff of every product from household bleach to my few treasured cosmetics understand that this kind of promotion is counterproductive ?  The younger among us have grown up with it and can tune it out.  I just want to switch it off for something simpler.