Hippy Clothes Go Mainstream

So a couple nights ago, after going out to eat, I found myself in, of all places, a Macy's store.

Now I'm not much on shopping, or fashion, or any of that, so it's not unusual for me to NOT be in a department store. In fact, I think the last time I landed in a Macy's or anything along those lines was probably a good decade or more ago. But for whatever reason, there I was.

So imagine my shock when right inside the front door, I am greeted by this:



I mean, WTF?

And it wasn't like it was just a little section, this stuff was all over the friggin store.

I kid you not.



Aisles and aisles of the stuff. It was like everywhere.



This stuff was EVERYWHERE. It was like the entire women's clothing section had been tossed and replaced my mass manufactured HypeeWear™®.

I took a closer look at some of this stuff, and it was REALLY cheaply made. As in, I rather doubt it would even survive a real show. The fabrics were really flimsy, and stitching looked like they used the absolute cheapest thread they could find, and I wondered if some of this stuff wouldn't just completely disintegrate the first time it was washed.



It was obvious they'd done SOME homework, in that the "look" was there (and everywhere you looked), but it just was so incredibly strange to be in what in most shopping centers is normally considered to be a pretty conservative and stalwart "anchor" store, and to just literally be swimming in stuff like this.

Now this REALLY was kind of freaky:




I mean, mannequins? WTF? Ok, so granted I don't get out much (outside of shows, that is) but when exactly, did we go mainstream? When did the aesthetic become a mass manufactured commodity?

And even more interesting to me, is when (or more precisely how) did corporate America decide that this was to be the "in vogue" look for the summer for the masses?

Upon looking at quite a few of them closely, I found that the majority of these were made in China, along with Taiwan, India, Guatemala, the Philippines, Korea, and a very few were made in the USA. This struck me as more than a bit odd, in that all the stuff I've ever seen in the lots have been generally been made by people who at least have HEARD of the music the clothes are generally associated with.

They didn't miss a lick either, the everything got the "Boho Chic" (apparently Hippy still has a dirt connotation that goes with it, so the very name had to be gentrified for consumption), including:



Purses. Lots of purses:



Jewelry. Gotta love the big stores to make sure you can accesorize in matching product lines without having to move more than 20 feet to do so.





I mean, seriously, the entire downstairs floor of the store was just chock full of this stuff.



And it was all on sale too! Drastic reductions throughout the store. Huge, huge, discounts. Big Clearance. (ok, I'm assuming everybody knows the retail game right? You figure out what you want to charge for something, mark the "normal" price up by 30-40%, hope it sells, and if it doesn't you mark it way down to what you were going to charge in the first place, and get what you originally wanted to sell it for, and only it it's TRULY a flop do you dump it on a liquidator to show up in outlet shops so as not to have people realize what the stuff you're selling is actually worth. That's the America Retail Way).

So I can't help but wonder, of any of this stuff was assembled by 14 year old kids working in a sweatshop some place? I'd hope not, after all, this is Macys, right?