My dear friend, Colette is a buyer for the store Essentials. Essentials is fun, whimsical, and chock full of handpicked things from every price point. You can get 10 gift tags for 95 cents or a custom couch for $4000.
It's kind of a love or hate place, it seems. I personally adore it. I worked there for three years while going to school and figuring things out and still shop there. But there are the haters. People like to walk in and say "None of this stuff is 'essential!'" as if they're the first person in the 25 year history of the store to think that. People who like to rag on the place seem to dislike the aesthetic, or prefer to think of themselves as too hip for it.
Recently, Colette told me that two young women came in and joked... "This store is SO put a bird on it!" of course, referring to the genius Portlandia sketch. Granted, there are a lot of items with birds on them in the store. But who doesn't love a bird on something? Also, who doesn't love Portlandia?
disclaimer:
I thought everything in this sketch looked better once a bird was applied
I thought everything in this sketch looked better once a bird was applied
So much makes that sketch brilliantly funny, but most certainly because it's true. People who tend to like to craft birds on otherwise banal items to achieve a particular look are rarely ever in close proximity to the birds they so often like to stencil or embroider on things. I personally blame (love) etsy.
Yesterday, I went in the store and behind the front counter on a memo board with notes and fun drawings by the staff were stickers with Burt Reynolds head:
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| Put a Burt on it. |
It was kind of in response to obnoxious 20-somethings, kind of a poke at the store, and just funny. All local stores should have great style and a sense of humor about them. Makes spending money there so much more fun.
