Shopping is... Shopping is necessary. We all have to shop for the basics of life. From the smallest village market to the largest Wal-Mart, these are the stores that supply the routines of our daily life.
Shopping is emotional. Delight at a bargain. Satisfaction at filling the refrigerator. Anyone who thinks shopping is rational has spent too long in the office. Shoppers arrive at the store with hope, anticipation, excitement. The right experience, the perfectly pitched service, ensures they leave enchanted and uplifted. The wrong note triggers resentment and disappointment.
Shopping is primal. We were all once proud hunters and gatherers. Make no mistake, shopping keeps those ancient spirits alive. We track, we stalk, we browse, we forage, we close in, we return home in triumph. What else explains the passions of collectors? The adidas Originals store in SoHo, New York knows that old-school is forever and plays classic hip hop to prove it.
Shopping is human nature. We surround ourselves with the things that we love. As humans we are acquisitive and curious, natural born collectors and accumulators. This is the side of us captured by stores like JACK SPADE. Great, well-designed bags and accessories as you’d expect, but also an anti-retail array of stuff that raises questions. What is it? –A ping pong paddle cover. Who is Sir Walter Scott? –Check it out on Amazon. What’s with the stuffed shark? –Mystery.
Shopping is seductive. Erma Bombeck, the voice of the American housewife in the 1960s and 1970s, once said:
“The chances of going into a store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are about 3 billion to one.” 156
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Barbara Kruger I shop therefore