THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 19, 1995 TAG: 9505190052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAMELA BROWN and VENITA TAYLOR, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENTS
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
TAKE TWO GIRLS, three pairs of jeans, three shirts, two hats, one dress and a really hairy jacket and you get Venita and Pam's fantastic voyage through malldom.
Our mission: to find out if how you dress to shop affects the way teenage shoppers are treated.
We figure that teenagers should get treated pretty good at the mall because they spend a lot of money. Last year, the nation's 27 million teenagers spent about $95 billion, according to Teen Research Unlimited, a market research firm in Northbrook, Ill. Locally, nearly 70 percent of teenagers report spending up to $100 on clothing each month, according to a Virginian-Pilot poll. Another 11 percent say they spend between $176 and $200 per month on clothing.
So here's what we did: We picked two outfits each, one conservative, the other much more casual, and went shopping ``undercover.''
We started in our conservative gear at Coliseum Mall. Our journey continued at Chesapeake Square Mall and Greenbrier Mall in grunge wear.
There was a saleswoman in Bakers, a shoe store at Coliseum Mall, who was very helpful in explaining exactly how shoes go on sale without being asked, and she did all this while assembling a display.
But a saleswoman in another store at the same mall continued gossiping on the phone for the entire 10 minutes that we spent looking around the store . . made a point of staring us down. And that was while we were dressed as if we were going to church.
Overall, though, our most wary responses came when we were dressed like extras off of MTV's ``The Grind.'' The reactions were more varied, more interesting, more obvious.
Mysteriously, a security guard popped up in three of the stores that we went into at Greenbrier Mall while we were dressed in grunge. But we are sure that he was just there for our safety.
It didn't matter what sort of store we went into - jewelry stores, shoe stores, sporting good stores and even new age, retro, dead rocker-obsessed stores - in some we were about as welcome as Louis Farrakhan on the ``Rush Limbaugh Show.''
Still, there were some very attentive salesmen during our stint in grunge. Two guys in Style Setter at Chesapeake Square made a point of saying ``hello'' more than once.
In Spencer Gifts, the salesman gladly helped to settle a Brad Pitt poster dispute. (FYI: Both ``Legends of the Fall'' posters on sale at the store feature Brad - one with long, loose hair and one with his hair pulled back.) And the lady at the Cinnabon gave us extra icing for free.
Then again, at a store dealing with the age of peace, love and hair grease, we got the ice. We expected just a bit more heat from a store that sells devil sticks.
Overall, responses were mixed, no matter how we were dressed. So feel free to go to the mall dressed however you like.
We think it is an age thing, not a clothing thing. Some older people think we don't have any money (hey, a Rand Poll found that teen spending will skyrocket to $99 billion by the turn of the century!). Face it, we have a stereotype to overcome. It is that teenagers are loud and wild, and adults have to watch us.
So be prepared for anything, no matter how you are dressed, unless, of course, you are with your mother. MEMO: Venita Taylor and Pamela Brown are seniors at Western Branch High
School. ILLUSTRATION: D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/Staff color photos
Venita Taylor, left in both photos, and Pamela Brown picked two
outfits each and went shopping ``undercover.''
by CNB