New York Times
November 3, 2005
Critical Shopper
When That Old Feeling Creeps Up on You
By ALEX KUCZYNSKI
I WAS 20 the first time I felt Old. My friend Eliot called to tell me that we were officially Old because he had just bought the new Playboy and the centerfold model was only 19. We're older than the Playboy centerfold, he said. We are Old.
At 25, I felt Old because a 23-year-old had just published a novel.
Around 30, however, something strange happened: I began to feel younger with each birthday. Part of this has to do with the fact that as you get older, you have older friends, and I'm not about to tell my 75-year-old tennis partners I feel old. I mean, right? And part of it, I admit, is probably the Botox.
But I got that Old feeling again the other day when my editor asked me to visit Forth & Towne, the new venture from Gap, aimed at the mature woman, meaning older than 35. Before visiting the store, which is in a low-to-middlebrowish mall in West Nyack, N.Y., I pondered the question of the market. Is 35 mature?
Weren't all the women on "Sex and the City" over 35, and were any of them considered mature, meaning Old? Will women mind being seen walking into a store that sells Spanx Power Panties? (Which Forth & Towne does.) Don't we live in an era when 80 is the new 50, and 120 is the new 80, and everyone should dress like Ashlee Simpson?
Apparently not. Seeking to tap into the vast, wealthy boomer market, Forth & Towne is trying to do what several chains and catalogs - Chico's, Eileen Fisher, Ann Taylor, Talbots, J. Jill and Coldwater Creek, among others - already do: provide reasonably priced, attractive clothing for middle-aged women, and 35 is the jumping-off point.
The West Nyack store is one of five Forth & Towne stores in the country; the other four are in Illinois, in Chicago suburbs. The name comes from the fact that this is Gap's fourth venture, and Towne is supposed to imply some sort of meeting place. It all sounds canned and corny to me, but no more so than Ann Taylor, who is as mythical a figure as Aunt Jemima or Ronald McDonald.
The only real problem with the name is that the initials spell F-A-T, and Forth & Towne carries clothes from sizes 2 to 20. (Another potential problem is the size range: A size 2 customer may spot a size 20 shopper going into Forth & Towne and decide that the store couldn't possibly serve her needs. A size 20 shopper may see a size 2 shopper and imagine the same.)
I arrived, I'll admit it, expecting to find elastic-waist jeans and muumuus in a dreary environment with an indolent chain-store staff. What I found was something truly startling: generally terrific merchandise, priced a bit less than Banana Republic, set against an elegant environment provided by the architect David Rockwell. The chain has proclaimed that it will be known for its customer service, and without question the service was better than any I have experienced at any store in my memory: friendly, scrupulously attentive and honest.
MY 40-something shopping companion and I were greeted at the front door by one of the store's "style consultants," a woman with a French accent and suspiciously vivid green eyes, who explained that the place is arranged into four lines of clothing: Allegory is classic and conservative, suits and work clothes; Vocabulary is the artsy line, with knits and prints; Gap Edition carries versions of Gap favorites; and Prize is the chic, flirty stuff.
In Allegory I found a wool topcoat for $148. A knit poncho in Vocabulary ($128) struck me as a bit too Bea Arthur in her "Maude" days. Gap Edition has jeans "with more than a one-inch rise," one of the consultants told us. Uh-oh, Mom jeans alert. But they were just plain jeans that fit right around where they ought to.
Throughout the store, there were no overt concessions to age, just simple common-sense gestures: no tummy-enhancing pleats on the tailored pants, and lots of things made in an accommodating stretchy wool or crepe.
The fitting rooms were straight out of the "Thin Man" movies. They are laid out in a circle in the center of the store, behind panels of glass and silver beads. Once you enter, there are 12 dazzling dressing rooms, each outfitted with its own wallpaper, glass-topped vanity and upholstered ottoman. In the center of the room a circular sofa surrounds a table laden with flowers, books and magazines, bracelets and scarves.
Staff members literally ran in and out of the place, looking for sizes and styles for us to try. They called us by name. "Alex needs an 8 in the black," one said into her headset. Another shouted over her shoulder, "I'm going to get Al the green silk top." Al. Not only were they calling me by name, they were already using a nickname. And I am quite sure they didn't recognize that I was a journalist.
They brought us cold bottled water. They told us to come back for tea on Tuesdays, when some items are 10 percent off. It was chatty and intimate. One of the women told us her husband had left her for a younger woman. Why, we asked. Gesturing toward her waist, she indicated that her bosom sagged. "And hers are here," she said, pointing at her chin and lifting her shoulders as if to say whaddayagonnado?
The service makes the store special for two reasons. First, it will remind some shoppers of the old-fashioned, now largely defunct genteel ladies' department stores of their youth. Second, it addresses a profound psychological need experienced by lots of women. The plight of many a middle-aged woman, chunky woman, old woman and woman left by her husband, is one of invisibility - or simply feeling invisible. The atmosphere in Forth & Towne addresses that problem.
The décor and service both say that the glamour and elegance and polite manners you remember from childhood still exist. The old ways still work. These women know who Nick and Nora Charles are. I felt that if I were a size 20, and 65 years old, and the wolf whistles and opened doors and admiring glances had come to an end long ago, these ladies would have made me visible to the eyes of the world again. And shoppers will pay any price for that.
Forth & Towne
Palisades Center, West Nyack, N.Y.; 845) 358-1725
ATMOSPHERE A theater set out of "The Thin Man" meets Elle Decor.
SERVICE Extraordinary.
KEY LOOKS Attractive suburban mother; soft knits and tailored suits; silk blouses and jeans.
PRICES Nothing is over $200. Wool coat, $148; faux-alligator clutch purse, $68; suede shoulder bag, $88; ample, chunky wool scarf, $48; black satin pumps, $98.
...thanks for the article ta-ta...
