Leftover Metrocard Change Infuriates Some
UPDATE: City To Remove 14 Blocks Of Bike Lanes On Bedford Ave.
Hamster Rides The 4 Train
Bouncer Beatdown at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club
2nd Avenue Subway Cooling System Will "Blight" UES
Kimora Lee Simmons at JCPenney's Grand Opening
JC Penney has arrived in Herald Square, leaving locals disaffected and tourists hurling towards a familiar sight. Is Penney's our TGIFriday's of retail? The NY Times reports on the department store's new digs, look and goods with, dare we say, a biting tone that's less becoming than a plethora of polysynthetics. Miss Size 2 reporter guesstimates that 96% of the inventory is made of polyester, and it's nearly impossible to find anything below a size 10. She adds, "it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of Roseanne.” Hopefully there are enough airbrushed magazine covers out there to combat this, lest little girls grow up thinking it's okay to be anything more than a size 2.
In the end, the now twice "apologetic" reporter, Cintra Wilson, declares that even though it's the same elastic waist pant they could have procured at the strip mall on Main Street, tourists will feel it's special because they bought it in New York City; and "No matter how many Grand Slam breakfasts you’ve knocked out of the park, Penney’s has a size for you."
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Now only if we has a Denny's so we could get those Grand Slams going...
And fill all those fat pants!
Why is everyone acting as though only tourists will shop here?
Exactly...
A little selective today, are we, Carlson?
The real quote is as follows:
"herein lies the genius of J. C. Penney: It has made a point of providing clothing for people of all sizes (a strategy, company officials have said, to snatch business from nearby Macy’s). To this end, it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen."
and
"This niche has been almost wholly neglected on our snobby, self-obsessed little island. New York boutiques tend to cater to the stress-thin, morbidly workaholic, Pilates-tortured Manhattan ectomorph."
Agreed. The coverage of this article reminds me of the movie promo that says something like: Roger Ebert calls it 'fascinating...unique in the history of film." And then you read the full review, which says "It's always fascinating that something this bad gets made, though terrible movies are hardly unique in the history of film."
hah perfect!
I will never forgive Penneys for displacing the only Arbys in Manhattan. YOU BASTARDS.
YES!
This is why I do not read the Times Style section.
Would everybody please please pretty please stop giving Cintra Wilson the time of day, much less devoting bandwidth to this abomination of an article?
Frankly, I shopped there already. It's pretty much the only reasonably priced chain store that actually sells tall sizes on the rack rather than on the website. Having the JCP here actually saves this New Yorker the trouble of hitting the strip mall out in the sticks.
How are you typing so well with a BigMac in one hand?
valeriob,i hope you get a brain tumor.
I hope you live a long healthy happy life.
Tall sizes? Really? I'm 5'10 and a size 4-6 (depending on who makes it), did you see any good lengths in those sizes?
I would go there...but I think of 34th street during the evening time and I shudder!!
They did actually have a lot of tall sizes in 4-6, and weirdly, their pant sizes don't seem to run as big as their tops. (I'm an 8-10 and the 8 fit perfectly.) The inseam is 34 1/2" on the tall sizes, I think. And I'm not sure if this is still the case, but their stuff used to last forever. (I'm still wearing a suit jacket I bought five or six years ago.)
my girlfriend is tall and she does all her shopping at Macy's next door
I have to admit, that insulin-epoxy line made me laugh. Wilson is a good writer and witty too, but despite that, she appears to be almost a cliche of a bitchy new york fashion writer/ gadabout.
Were this a movie, shortly after publishing this article, a series of improbable events would cause her to lose her job, gain 60 pounds, move in to a trailer park in Arkansas and shop only at, you guessed it, Wal Mart (She can't afford JC Penny in my scenario).
That should have a "Coming Soon!" attached to it...it sounds like something Hollywood would do.
JCPenney's men's work shirts are good and inexpensive, but you have to be careful when buying them because 95 percent are a polyester blend. But you can get the same Dockers there for $25 that you'd pay $45 for somewhere else.
Those wishing to purchase Dockers should be banished to NJ
And yet K-Mart, IKEA & Target seem to be doing oh so well in NYC.
New Rule: NYC is rapidly becoming "as lame" as everywhere else. You do not get to reference other areas. No matter how much you pay for rent (because we all know you pay that much to be a provincial douche).
Sorry................. No one cares anymore.
wow what a cunt
It's one thing for a writer like this to be unapologetically bitchy and to alienate New Yorkers from every facet, but it's another for the New York Times to continue to print her articles. Not only did I find that article to be incongruous with most of the generally well-written and genuine material that the Times has a reputation for, but didn't any of her editors read this before they sent it to print?
Forget that she still doesn't think she did anything wrong (on her website, she snidely remarks that she's off to have a martini and everyone should get over it) because real consequences would prevail if the Times chose not to print her articles in the future as retribution for this blemish on their reputation.
Other content aside, I must agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I have always wondered why tourists come to New York, or Michigan Ave. in Chicago, and head straight to the Abercrombie and Gap stores. You have those at home!!
That's fairly country-specific don't you think? People come from all over the world to shop in NYC. And not all of the chain stores are in every other country.
bitch-o-rama.
"hurling?" Like, throwing up? Hurling themselves? Hurtling? I don't understand.
Caption should be: "So I said HELL NO.. I only take two cocks at a time!"
Up top! Eiffel tower style
Felix Hoenikker approves of this post.
I don't think I've ever seen a fat mannequin. I may have to stop by there for a giggle.
The review is accurate to some extent. I was at JC Penney yesterday and the smallest skinny jeans size was a 14. I walked over to a rack of t shirts and picked up the first shirt on the pile. It was an XL.
This came out yesterday... why are we still talking about this stupid article?
This potent mix of arrogant and shallow is by far the single worst written essay that I've ever read in the Times.
Do you even live in New York? Have you read the Times? It's 90% garbage 100% of the time.
Wilson's fat-bashing aside (which offends me less for its un-PC-ness than it does bore me with its lazy humor ... is there anything more predictable than a fat joke?), what bothers me more is that in a supposed assessment of a store and the clothing inside, she spent most of it insulting the clientele (and making stereotypical, uneducated assumptions of it) rather than the store's actual offerings. I was a music reviewer back in the day (which ... at least I was/am a life-long musician ... what's Wilson's cred? Is she a designer?) and although I did not give every band a positive review, never would I have stooped to belittling the lifestyles of the folks who listened to them. The job of a reviewer is to interpret the subject so that potential customers can make an informed decision, NOT to alienate them for their desire to make that choice in the first place. This is supposed to be the Age of Responsible Consumerism after all, isn't it?
Unfortunately (especially in the cranky, anonymous age of the internet) there will always be the Cintra Wilsons who think nastiness equates to colorful and engaging writing. I am deeply disappointed, however, that by publishing her mean-spirited missive, an institution such as the Times would stoop to nothing more than Perez Hilton-style snarkiness passing as a genuine review.
Incidentally, her first obnoxious "apology" on her website said something along the lines of "it's a positive review, believe it or not". I think that says it all right there ... if the vast majority of people did not read it the way you intended, then you haven't done your job very well, have you?
You know, I was curious about her background as well and did a little digging. She's absolutely not a designer and has no real apparent background in fashion. From a 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article:
"After dropping out of high school, Wilson went to San Francisco State, where she supported herself writing, and occasionally recording, scripts for 976 phone sex services"
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/09/19/LVGQ48N8FV1.DTL)
From what I gather from her website, Cintra has also written a few books on pop culture and has written for various publications over the past several years. She also performed in a number of theater productions in the SF area.
Does this make her qualified to lambast a retailer or fashion in general? I wouldn't think so. Perhaps she's working through her own insecurities/failures by fat-shaming mannequins? I realize she's aiming for snarky here - but it just comes off as snobbery and condescension. And really - who fat-shames a mannequin?!
Retail space is better than the office space that level used to be.
Wow, what an insulting and snotty article. We get it, you're a size 2! And you are obviously SO above shopping at such a prole store!
What an asshole.
All hail Hypnotoad!!
Exactly. After the Times fires that dumb bitch, she'll have a wonderful future contributing to goop.com.
Why is everyone so surprised by this? Fashion rags are often snarky, elitist and mean, which this article encapsulates quite succinctly.
Exactly. Fashion rags are like that...not the Times, or at least that's what I thought before reading this article!
It's not quite as caustic as Jen makes it out to be, I don't think, but it still bothers me a bit.
To be fair, though, I don't usually read the Fashion & Style section, so I don't have anything to compare this article to.
There's a major movement afoot to get her removed as a columnist from the NYT... developments posted as they leak!