Ruehl No. 925

i am going to go out on a limb here...

i went to the ruehl store in novi michigan... and i liked it, dont hate me!

the womens clothes were cute, yes they are pricey, but they seem to have good sales because everything i bought was half price. the quality is very good, and very unlike the other counter part, hollister (nasty). the clothes are classic preppy, and not alot of logo at all. they really had some beautiful stuff, like gorgeous beaded tanks and flowy tops, the womens t shirts are of good quality and the ones i bought have the perfect amount of stretch and sheer-ness. there were some thin lightweight sweater-cardigans with oversized buttons, and cropped at the waist. they had some really cute skirts and accessories. they had some beautiful purses, and some not so beautiful purses. i wasnt impressed with the jeans, or the service, the employees are all rude and not helpful, typical of abercrombie stores. and the mens section was lacking. but all in all, it is a 45 min drive from my house, and i would be willing to make the trip again.
 
I am not kidding, the A&F/Hollister/abercrombie/Ruehl company is trying to take over the world. If abercrombie appeals to 7 year olds, and Ruehl appeals to 30 year olds, that means you would be wearing the same exact clothes for 23 years! YIKES

Anyway, if this appeals to people 22-30, don't you think they will know better than to buy from these overpriced, poor quality, clone-brand???

Something else I don't quite understand:
How is this brand supposed to appeal to people who like art??? Can you really consider a polo that you have seen probably a thousand times before art???

And literature, ok, you can buy antique books? What exactly are antique books???

Doesn't the library have all the old books you want??

This whole store sounds like a major gimmick.
 
em 692 said:
I am not kidding, the A&F/Hollister/abercrombie/Ruehl company is trying to take over the world. If abercrombie appeals to 7 year olds, and Ruehl appeals to 30 year olds, that means you would be wearing the same exact clothes for 23 years! YIKES

Anyway, if this appeals to people 22-30, don't you think they will know better than to buy from these overpriced, poor quality, clone-brand???

Something else I don't quite understand:
How is this brand supposed to appeal to people who like art??? Can you really consider a polo that you have seen probably a thousand times before art???

And literature, ok, you can buy antique books? What exactly are antique books???

Doesn't the library have all the old books you want??

This whole store sounds like a major gimmick.

i guess i just dont put that much thought into how the big abercrombie corporation is trying to take over the world. if i see some clothes that i like, i buy them. i would never avoid buying a cute top just because the brand is fashioned by some execs in a high-class office. that really isnt my concern when i get dressed in the morning. my suggestion is to lighten up a little but about clothes. and also, the clothes are actually very high quality, seriously. the fabric on the shirts that i bought is some of the best casual clothes fabric that i own.....
 
They are making a Reuhl store in my mall @ Tysons Corner VA.Im going to see if it's open yet. Im curious to see whats going on in there...
 
I'm sorry but you can dress from all of these stores and not look like it, or be considered a 'slave to capitalism' or whatever some of you are calling it. :lol:

Label wh*ring is obnoxious if its Abercombie or Dior, if you ask me.
 
originally posted by lduv143
i guess i just dont put that much thought into how the big abercrombie corporation is trying to take over the world. if i see some clothes that i like, i buy them. i would never avoid buying a cute top just because the brand is fashioned by some execs in a high-class office. that really isnt my concern when i get dressed in the morning. my suggestion is to lighten up a little but about clothes. and also, the clothes are actually very high quality, seriously. the fabric on the shirts that i bought is some of the best casual clothes fabric that i own.....

That is not my point.

My point is that this store is a complete gimmick, and it is really nothing special, seeing as it is identical to the other three stores, and that, no, the quality is very poor (I mean of abercrombie and A&F). Perhaps the quality of Ruehl is better, but I'm not quite clear on which one you are talking about.
 
from the nytimes...

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The store, Ruehl, is the invention of the clothier Abercrombie & Fitch, which is seeking to extend beyond its core teenage market to include older customers with more expensive tastes. The company operates some 360 Abercrombie & Fitch stores for 18- to 22-year-olds, and in 2000 it began opening Hollister stores for 14- to 18-year-olds. Its five Ruehl stores are aimed at 20- and 30-somethings.

The store, according to the company's publicity material, takes its name from the Ruehl family, who moved from Germany in the mid-1800's and opened a leather goods emporium at 925 Greenwich Street in Manhattan. Abercrombie bought the rights to the name from the family in 2002.

Or so goes the corporate fable. Although the labels on all the clothes read "Ruehl No. 925 Greenwich Street, New York, NY," there was no Ruehl family. There is no Ruehl store in New York City, and there is no 925 Greenwich Street. (Greenwich Street ends in the 800's.)

Inside, the store resembles a plushy nightclub. Moody black-and-white photos hang on black walls, and divans in barely lighted corners look as if they were set up for canoodling. Shelves hold books about artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. (Get it? This is supposed to be Greenwich Village.)

The apparel is generally more sophisticated than what you would find at A&F. Men's polo shirts, $68, bear the Ruehl logo, a bulldog. A display in the store explains the dog, named Trubble: "Upon opening their shop in Greenwich Village, little did the Ruehl family realize that their first customer would be an inquisitive little bulldog with a steadfast demeanor and a confident attitude."

For women there are slip dresses, beautifully made handbags, lingerie, gauzy silk skirts and canvas jackets. Ambitious pieces include a beaded bolero jacket woven with metallic thread for $248 and a gold clutch with a serpent closure for $198.

The problem was, I could barely see the clothes because the store's interior was so dark. So dark that I had to approach each step tentatively, tapping my foot out first. So dark that I couldn't tell what color the clothes were. A backlit display of filmy lingerie rendered each piece an indistinguishable shade of sludgy gray-brown-beige, even though they were different colors.

Taking an armful of items into the changing room, I hoped to see if the skirt I was holding was black or purple or neon-tangerine. There was just enough light for me to see that the skirt was brown. I think. Apart from that, I couldn't tell how it would look in daylight or at dusk. I could, however, tell how it would look on a moonless night if I were standing in a cornfield 100 miles away from the nearest light source.

That would be: dark.


In the retail world, low lighting is supposed to project an upscale image; darkness also suggests mystery and inspires exploration. This is great in concept, but the execution doesn't jibe with the bright white of the mall. I actually saw customers stand and blink for several seconds after they left the store, their eyes adjusting to the daylight.

The darkness may also encourage another problem: the five-finger discount. Having shoplifted one item in my entire life, I can safely say that even I could have cleaned this place out in a few minutes. (O.K., it was a tennis skirt from Lord & Taylor. I was 13. It was a dare. I live with the shame to this day.) Perhaps this was why there seemed to be an inordinate number of security guards at Ruehl; every time I turned a corner, I ran into a burly guy in a T-shirt. Not the most relaxing way to shop.

Will men and women in their 20's and 30's be drawn to Ruehl? I'm not sure. People at that age aspiring to the heights of sangfroid that Ruehl appears to promote would never deign to exert effort to find the right size, let alone spend 10 minutes squinting at a skirt to discern its color. This is a shame because the clothing is worth the time and the money.

Finally there is the name. What it conjures for me - and I am in the target demographic - is an image of Mercedes Ruehl, a talented and vivid actress. But she is best known for playing roles like the hapless girlfriend (in "The Fisher King"), the babbling wife (in "Lost in Yonkers") or the nerdy shrink (in "The Mary Kay Letourneau Story"). Hapless, babbling and nerdy. Try as it might, the name just doesn't sound cool.

Ruehl

At Westfield Shoppingtown Garden State Plaza, Paramus, N.J.; (201) 845-8108.

ATMOSPHERE Dark. Booming music.

SERVICE Among the sales staff, there is a lot of vigorous fluffing and folding and a lot of "Hello, how are you?" but a lot less actual assistance.

KEY LOOKS Distressed jeans and button-down shirts; slip dresses and shrugs.

PRICES Reasonable. $158 for the best-selling "destroyed" blue jeans; $198 for a woman's canvas jacket with ribbon tie.
 
kimair said:
The store, according to the company's publicity material, takes its name from the Ruehl family, who moved from Germany in the mid-1800's and opened a leather goods emporium at 925 Greenwich Street in Manhattan. Abercrombie bought the rights to the name from the family in 2002.

Or so goes the corporate fable. Although the labels on all the clothes read "Ruehl No. 925 Greenwich Street, New York, NY," there was no Ruehl family. There is no Ruehl store in New York City, and there is no 925 Greenwich Street. (Greenwich Street ends in the 800's.)

Inside, the store resembles a plushy nightclub. Moody black-and-white photos hang on black walls, and divans in barely lighted corners look as if they were set up for canoodling. Shelves hold books about artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. (Get it? This is supposed to be Greenwich Village.)

The apparel is generally more sophisticated than what you would find at A&F. Men's polo shirts, $68, bear the Ruehl logo, a bulldog. A display in the store explains the dog, named Trubble: "Upon opening their shop in Greenwich Village, little did the Ruehl family realize that their first customer would be an inquisitive little bulldog with a steadfast demeanor and a confident attitude."

Surely I'm not the only one that thinks there is something SO very wrong about this? Why would you fabricate a lame story like that in an attempt to give the store interesting culture and background? That is so frickin' gimmicky and straight up pathetic. I didn't even know this store existed until I read this thread today, but it sounds like the rest of Abercrombie & Fitch's stores: tacky, tacky, tacky.
 
I'm sure they have some nice pieces at the stores. But still, there's something wrong about this..Maybe they should've called the brand 'Dilemma' or something.. Then they could've decorate the place more Shakespearish and use 'to be or not to be' as their motto..
 
Sure, every store has some nice pieces if you take the time to look. Shakespeare might have been a more appropriate idea for a theme, at least they wouldn't have had to make up some story. But I'm guessing that Shakespeare would never have been "edgy" or "cool" enough for Abercrombie & Fitch. :smile:
 
they resemble a lot of bags right now. Not exactly cutting-edge merchandise there.
 
i went in the one in paramus, it is just like A&F but more expensive. that's it. a couple cute things but otherwise, exactly like the other abercrombie and hollister stores. i hate that stuff!
 
Uh, HELLO? Aeropostale already USES the bulldog as their logo? Like, are you serious, now I can go to Aeropostale and buy a polo for my man for like twenty, and it looks like Ruehl. Oh, my, god.
 
TheSoCalledPrep said:
Uh, HELLO? Aeropostale already USES the bulldog as their logo? Like, are you serious, now I can go to Aeropostale and buy a polo for my man for like twenty, and it looks like Ruehl. Oh, my, god.

They do??:lol:

A&F's "creativity" is almost non-existant. Even Hollister used a bird [seagull] which is similar to American Eagle's eagle. If I'm not mistaken AE even tried to sue Hollister.
 
I only skimmed the articles posted, so forgive me if i'm missing something, but what does Ruehl offer that is marketable to 30 year olds that isn't found in A&F? Judging by the pictures posted, the clothes look exactly the same.

Regarding the logos- that's quite pathetic. :lol: As if there aren't enough animals for all of the A&F type stores! Is the flamingo taken?
 

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