According to NPR, it's because they help us dream.
"We look at them less as tools and more as magazines for our customers," says Felix Carbullido, chief marketing officer at Williams-Sonoma. "They've become more editorial. They've become more of a source book of ideas."...Oh, that reminds me... here's the "The 2014 Hater's Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog":
That style you've seen portrayed in high-end catalogs is often a tableau: Maybe it's a couch, a bookcase, a couple of rugs, plants, sunlight streaming into a casually elegant room. Even if you're not buying, the retailers want you to keep dreaming. And that's one reason the catalogs keep coming.
In here, there is nothing but endless kitchen countertops, and meticulously arranged buffet spreads with pre-made bundt cakes (prep it a day early, and your party is a snap!) that have been drizzled just so with triple-butterscotch icing. There are fancy chocolates enrobed in other fancy chocolates. There are WHIMSICAL TINS (yes, the copy actually says that)...White person! By the way, Williams-Sonoma isn't mentioned once in Stuff White People Like. I think the only catalog ever mentioned in Stuff White People Like is...
Anyway, as a card-carrying white person, I have once again received this catalog in the mail....
Did you guess? J. Crew! From "#51 Living by the water":
Rather than say all white people want to live on the ocean, it’s important to break it up and apply it across the regions.So if, as NPR says, catalog are source books of dreams, and if, as Stuff White People like says, J. Crew is the catalog for East-Coast-white-person dreams of living by the water, and those of us in "landlocked states" dream of lakefront property, where's the catalog for midwestern white-person-living-by-the-water dreams?
On the west coast, all white people want to live as close to the beach as possible. One look at the demographics for Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, Hermosa Beach, Newport Beach, and Laguna Beach will reveal this fact through tangible numbers.
On the East Coast, many white people dream of owning ocean front property in New England, where they can make their lives as close as possible to a J. Crew catalog.
And in the landlocked states, the dream of lakefront property is alive and well.
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28 comments:
I guessed L.L.Bean. Still New England, but not ocean-front oriented.
The sad thing about catalogs is that Sears closed their catalog system the year before Amazon began. They had all the infrastructure in place that Bezos has been building for 20 years. All they needed was imagination.
Lands End, of course.
Personally, I stick with the Victoria's Secret catalog.
They're helping me dream.
Michael K-
I have often thought about Sears' missed opportunity. I'm sure they have too.
I don't think it is legal to publish a catalog catering to my dreams. probably some 'crossing-state-lines' issue, no doubt.
I am Laslo.
Catalogs and online presence also creates more of an independent culture surrounding the store and drives traffic to the brick and mortar store - even if they are associated with MALLS.
I've been shopping mostly online since the 90s. This year I had to go to the dreaded MALL for a specific purchase. It was completely dead EXCEPT for the Crate and Barrel store, which has a heavy catalog and online presence. My friend was excited to see an Anthropologie store because she had only known them through catalogs. I'd probably check out a Sundance store if they had one.
I knew malls were dying, but the change was startling. Not only had entire wings gone dark, but there were cheesy, low-rent, moneymakers everywhere: little hills of 'artisan' gumball machines in the middle of the walkways, corners crammed with vending machines, gas station-type quickie mart stores as proper tenants next door to Victoria's Secret. WEIRD - what's next... A Bail Bond kiosk and a Pay Day Loan store-within-a-store?
Hey, Bass Pro, Cabela's, Cheaper Than Dirt and Sportsman's Guide are all the catalogues you'll ever need...
I went to williams sonoma the other day because I used my cousins whisk and it was awesome. 32 dollars. For a whisk! I swear I bought a flat whisk there two years ago for 12, but those are 30 now too. What gives, WS??
I think what they are getting at is that catalogs are basically magazines, they aren't about ordering things (although they'd love it if you do that too). Pottery Barn even lists the color, so you can run to the store and get it for your house.
The idea that proximity to the ocean is posh seems defective. There is always one problem that is otherwise a classic real estate problem: Noise!
The ocean makes a continual racket at the beach.
I thought they were just helping me with fuel for my wood stove.
Actually, I don't burn them, I am not sure what kind of metals are in the ink, and I don't want them in my Ben and Jerry's, but yeesh, I get a lot of these. Maybe four a day.
@AA
Your idea of continual racket is a soothing lullaby to others. Most sound relaxation machines come with "ocean" as an option.
Some of us find the sounds of the ocean soothing. I couldn't imagine living in a city with all of the sounds it has all night, but the ocean is repetitive with its sounds and lulls me to sleep. Check out any collection of relaxation CDs, and ocean sounds will be one of them.
The Official Preppy Handbook published in 1980 was a landmark publication that really blazed new trails for catalogs retailers. The humor book became the fully realized actual guide of its tongue-in-check title. After its publication LL Bean, Lands End, J Crew stopped being merchandise catalogs and started to embody a whole lifestyle. Retailing changes in the 1980’s were transformative.
"There is always one problem that is otherwise a classic real estate problem: Noise!
The ocean makes a continual racket at the beach."
I lived at the beach for a few years. You tune out the noise pretty early. I used to get up early and look at the beach to see what had happened during the night. One morning there was a helicopter that had landed.
One noise we couldn't tune out was an old railroad line that ran along the beach in San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente. A train would go by about every four hours and shake the whole house.
@Michael K -
My wife grew up on Long Island, near Kennedy Airport. The first time I visited her parents' house, I couldn't believe how loud the planes landing at JFK were, and how often. She responded that she didn't even hear it anymore, and couldn't remember the last time that she was aware of the noise.
Catalog gift food must be for those truly desperate to buy something, anything, to discharge that obligation to buy a gift.
Yes, the Somoma-Williams steak package costs $330. and contains 8.75 pounds of steak ($37.72/lb).
Which might be a reasonable price if they cook it to order for you, and provide table service with it. Unless you live in the desert or something, surely you can find better steaks for less money in a local store? And buy them fresh, in the quantity you want, when you want them?
But then, isn't all catalog gift food overpriced and at best only of mediocre quality?
Omaha Steaks is keeping their prices in line by including lots of hot dogs and hamburger with their gift "steak" packages. But, we're assured these are very fine hot dogs, and only the best hamburger? Does your local store not stock Hebrew National, or sell quality, fresh hamburger?
Harry and David at one time at least provided excellent quality fruit, even if it was costly. But then they sold out to someone or other, and now their catalog is full of canned and packaged foods they've presumably bought from some contract manufacturer.
Catalog gift food is all about presentation and obligation; it's surely not about good food.
It deserves a place right up their with that hardy perennial, The Inedible Christmas Fruitcake.
@Ann Althouse -
"White person!"
Magary's stuff is generally pretty funny, but it should be noted that The Concourse is a Gawker subsite, and there is a general anti-White sentiment that runs through pretty much every post.
Ann Althouse said...The idea that proximity to the ocean is posh seems defective. There is always one problem that is otherwise a classic real estate problem: Noise!
The ocean makes a continual racket at the beach.
People pay good money for that racket! I found a good replica, though: proximity to an interstate when 10+ floors up. My old apt was on the 16th floor and about 100 yards from the downtown connector (75/85) in Atlanta--it was built before anyone considered double-paned windows or other soundproofing ideas, but from that height you heard what amounted to a dull constant rushing sound, not unlike being a quarter mile from the ocean. Cheaper, too!
We call every company that sends us a catalog and ask to be taken off the mailing list. We have gone from dozens each week to only one every month or so. It's really refreshing not to stuff most of your mail immediately into the trash bin.
I have 3 Not-The-LLBean Catalogues: Hoot, Hootier, and Hootiest.
I'll second Victoria's Secret. I also used to get Frederick's of Hollywood.
Okay, it was still being delivered to the apartment I was living in.
But they hadn't discovered airbrushing yet. . . .
"We are so lucky to have been raised in a time of catalogs."
Parker Posey as "Meg Swan" in "Best in Show"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKdEdzHnfU
I took the snowmobile down to the mailbox yesterday. Had so many catalogs they filled the little saddlebag or whatever you call it in the back of the seat. In that pile of mail was one actual Christmas card, the rest was junk. Or I think it is junk. My wife reads them and orders stuff, which explains everything.
If we didn't get catalogs, we'd get almost no mail at all. And then J., our mailman, would have no reason to come to our door and share with me his insights about the Packers, Brewers, and Badgers. And then I would be sad.
Wait a minute! What about dreamers who want a cabin in Aspen? Like Redford or John Denver. "We'll move up into the mountains so far we can't be found, and throw 'I love you' echoes down the canyon then lie awake all night 'til they come back around..."
Not to mention other mountain areas. There does seem to me to be a significant culture of people who at least claim to want to have a log cabin in the pines kind of life.
Now, having spent an actual winter in a place where the snow crept over the gutters, the ice knocked trees down and over the narrow, and in any case dangerously slick, roads, and the clouds obscured the sun for weeks at a time, I'm not among the group who wants to live my whole life in such a location. BUT, we're talking about dreamers, right?
White people like all catalogs, which are often full of happy white people. No need to enumerate when it's universal.
Happy White People!
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