Mall Update

So I went to the nearby mall Saturday in search of my ‘new look’.  It was my first visit to this particular mall in more than ten years but it felt just like it did then … big, confusing and full of stuff I don’t want or need.  However, I did stick with my usual shopping focus.  I had three specific types of things to buy or at least look at and that is exactly what I did.

First, as I mentioned a few days ago, was clothes.  I looked at dress clothes and casual clothes and quickly determined that Macy’s has a great selection of dress clothes that look right on 40 and 50 year olds and casual clothes perfectly suited to either 18-year-old high school seniors or 30-year-old gay men.  So I decided this would be a dress clothes shopping trip.  I looked at everything, had the sales guy measure me for proper shirt size (which turned out to be exactly the sizing I guessed) and picked out a couple of basic items.  I looked at every brand and ended up with Dockers pants and a Van Heusen shirt.  I know I said I would search for other brands but most of the other brands did not appeal to me, partly because the most popular current trend is ‘slim fit’ and while I am in decent shape, I am not ‘slim fit’.

The casual clothes choices were very frustrating.  There were some great looking items but most would look a little odd on me.  This is not a comfort zone issue, it is an issue of not trying to dress like an 18-year-old.  I was surprised by how many polo shirts were on display, however, but I am trying to get away from that look.  Funny thing is that maybe it is popular again and maybe I should just keep buying them, but in different colors than my usual palette.  I also considered advice given in the Comments section of my previous style post … I went with blue for the dress shirt and I did not see one single Hawaiian shirt.  Guess I’ll just have to go to Hawaii again for that.

The other items on my focused shopping list: skillets and a bicycle tire pump.  The tire pump was easy … I went to Sears.  Found what I wanted in the sporting goods department in five minutes; three of those minutes were a flashback to my first full-time job … in the sporting goods department of a Sears store.  The skillet story is a whole different matter.  There are way too many choices.  How can it be so hard to find good quality 10 inch and 12 inch non-stick skillets with covers?  And I want one pot … I don’t know the size, I just know it has to be larger than the medium sized one I already have.  I don’t want a whole set.

I did walk the mall end-to-end looking for other stores with men’s casual clothes but didn’t see any stores that appealed to me.  I chose not to enter every store because that violated my focused approach.  I think my next step in search of casual clothes is to visit another mall, one that is in a different part of my county featuring slightly more upscale stores.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll shove my ego in the closet and try Wal-mart.  Or maybe I should just go back to the place where I’ve done most of my clothes shopping during the past ten or fifteen years: the outlet mall.