Morale plunge at the 5th avenue uniqlo
it was so horrible in there
A few days ago my coworker revealed that her best friend, who I’ve met a number of times, is a shopping fanatic. It’s his favorite thing. When he goes on vacation he will shop for up to twelve hours at a time, with his girlfriend who is also into shopping.
I said, “does he shop for anything, like, any kind of shopping or is it for a particular kind of thing?” I tried to phrase this two more times. She said she doesn’t know, and assured me that she doesn’t get it at all.
On his recent trip, to Japan, he flew back with several new suitcases of shopped items. My coworker was gifted three of these items. They all have faces, and are cuter versions of everyday things. We were walking down 6th Avenue while she was telling me this, and I tried to imagine what it would be like if every object in my vision had a face. If people had taken the care to insert more smiling faces into my environment.
I had to know more. “Is it super expensive, to shop this much, or are they budget shoppers?” She doesn’t know.
Emma and I went shopping last weekend. It was supposed to be a museum trip, but the MoMA was closing earlier than it said on Maps and so we were only allowed into the gift shop, which we lapped four times while discussing Emma’s upcoming wedding and my problem at the time, of not having a tote bag.
I’m usually dismissive of museum gift shops. Seeing art puts me in a heightened state, and the museums will harness this to get me to spend seventy dollars on something medium functional. The medium functional thing that most caught my eye at MoMA was the shelf of pastel-colored corduroy Yankees hats. Wearing one would be a way to honor my city and family while making light of the franchise, and signifying that I’m in on it.*
We didn’t buy a corduroy hat or taxi-shaped nightlight or mini apartment cornhole, but the shopping bug had sunk its teeth in, so before going to get drinks we hit the 5th Avenue Uniqlo.
I used to love uniqlo and buy almost everything there and wear it every day and feel so secure, and not self-conscious at all about, some days, wearing underwear, socks, pants, long sleeve waffle shirt, and puffer jacket all from Uniqlo. Being in there on Saturday gave me a sinking feeling. It’s practically asylum-wear. We walked down endless aisles of noble grays and beige and occasionally a light blue or green or rose, laughing, and were repeatedly startled by the mannequins, which are around every corner and registered for me as real people standing too close and too upright. By the end, we realized that it wasn’t so easy to leave — the walls are see through but there are very few doors — and it began to feel like an asylum that you’re allowed to tour completely before being informed that you’ve actually been committed.
What kept me going through Uniqlo was trying to understand my past self — was something really wrong with me that I felt so happy wearing so much unisex sepiascale? — and because I needed a bag.
What’s also disturbing about Uniqlo now is they use self checkout. Not the goofy kind at the grocery store — something closer to airport security. Shoplifting is dangled in front of you and then revealed to be pretty hard. I can’t imagine that these machines, which instantly scan every barcoded item within five feet, are cheaper than paying cashiers, and it seems like clearly part of the trend of impossibilizing petty crime in a pointed way to destroy the spirit of New Yorkers and pave the way for fascist policies.
Our next visit was easier mentally because I knew within minutes that I would not be buying anything. Skims. We were shocked by the mannequins. They are made from cloth instead of plastic, headless, and in a range of skin tones with incredible, barely possible bodies. They’re all dressed in nude bras and underwear. Seeing mannequins with different body types from each other overwhelmed my brain. It’s like a museum about the concept of a woman’s body.
It takes seeing five or six women wearing the same set of oversized brown sweatpants to realize it’s an employee uniform. About one in three people were filming content, and everyone in there had a jarringly full face of makeup. If uniqlo feels depersonalized in a sad way, skims feels dehumanizing in a fun way. I loved the Skims store. Or. I loved spending exactly seventeen minutes in the Skims store with Emma. I like the idea of owning an underwire-less cotton bra that is close to my skin tone, but not at the expense of spending money.
To rank. MoMa gift shop was the best for hanging out and talking about our lives (best third space), Uniqlo was the best for actually buying stuff (most literally a store), Skims was the most novel (closest to the feeling of being a museum).
This week I’ve been using downtime at work to scroll ***zon for products that will make me stop biting my nails. I hate that I do this. I always look like I’ve just fought off a small animal. There are more colors of stick-on nails than there are socks on the uniqlo sock wall, and it’s impossible to choose. All of them are ugly. The trick is to figure out which one will be ugly in a way that works with everything else about me. I don’t want to spend too much on them, but I also don’t want to spend too little (horror stories of glue not working, whole nail beds destroyed in the removal). I hate when shopping is made to feel high stakes. The thrill of thinking you might be getting a deal (as evidenced by the red slash through a larger number) is right next to the stories of lives upended by cheap products. Every day I can’t pick a stick-on nail color I keep biting my real nails. Nail biting is compulsive, scrolling for deals is kind of compulsive, walking down every aisle of uniqlo 5th avenue is vaguely compulsive. None of this would make me want to travel to another country to do this somewhere else, on a vacation. What my coworker’s best friend does (twelve hour days and five suitcase international flights) sounds like it has to be compulsive**, but probably in a different way. If I can get him to comment further, I’ll write back with updates.
I still think of you whenever I see a waffle shirt.
Are you back!!