It's been a long time since I've gone into a Hollister store to shop for myself. However, for Christmas my mother bought me a top from there while shopping for my teenage and near-teenage children of my cousins (and boy do I feel old saying that) which was a little too youth-like to wear around the office. So the day after Christmas, Mom and I went to the mall for our annual day-after shopping/returns outing.
At this time, I was just over a week post-op from my hip surgery, and was non-weight bearing on crutches. Being that we always go shopping for awhile, and I was still really tired from the crutches, we grabbed a wheelchair so I could get around the mall more easily. This was my third time using the wheelchair at the mall since my surgery (yeah, I know, I have a shopping problem) and therefore felt pretty accustomed to the difficulty of navigating through stores while in the chair. However, nothing could have prepared me for the total shitstorm that is navigating through Hollister in a wheelchair.
First off, it is crazy even getting into the store. If you've seen one Hollister, you've seen them all- the standard mall entrance for this store is a couple of steps up onto a veranda, then a couple more steps down into the actual store. Stairs not really being conducive to wheelchair-operations, everyone I told this story to has said, "wait, how did you get a wheelchair in there?" They do, in fact, have a handicap-accessible entrance- around the side, masked into the faux-door decor where most people won't even see it.
Once inside, it was a madhouse. The dimly-lit store, difficult enough when you're able-bodied ("wait, what color is that shirt?") is even harder when you're trying to make sure you won't run over something thrown to the floor in a fit of shopping frenzy by a teenager laden down with Christmas money. Also hard? Reaching most of the products from a sitting position. Most of the stuff I looked at was hanging off of racks, since I could not reach a lot of the tables. And if I wanted to look at something hanging on the wall? Forget it! First, I couldn't reach it from a sitting position (which to be fair, I couldn't do at most stores). Second, and most important, the layout of the store made it nearly impossible to navigate between the tables and the wall. Hell, even navigating within the "aisles" was pretty hard. Even if the store hadn't been filled with rowdy teens, it would have been an extremely tight fit.
After all of the battling to even get through the store, it came time for the dressing room. Note to anyone in a wheelchair that wants to try things on at Hollister: even though you want to try something on, Hollister doesn't want you to try it on. The fitting room assistant helped my mom navigate the chair back into the "handicap" area, pushing all of the curtains out of the way to ensure I could get back there and apologizing profusely because of the difficulty. To be clear: she wasn't apologizing because she couldn't navigate the wheelchair (she did a great job with that and was super helpful), she was apologizing because the fitting room "hallway" wasn't designed for a wheelchair. Had the fitting rooms been cordoned off with actual walls instead of curtains, there is no way I would have been able to fit in there.
Given all of the past discrimination suits against Abercrombie & Fitch (Hollister's parent company), I was not surprised in the least. The CEO of the company, Mike Jeffries, said the following in a 2006 interview with Salon:
Between all of the discrimination suits against the parent company in the past, and my own personal experience, I am convinced that they have purposely designed their Hollister fitting rooms to not fit wheelchairs in order to prevent/discourage disabled people from shopping at the store. Even their front facade is unwelcoming, telling those lesser-abled that they're not welcome. Jeffries has already admitted that the company is "absolutely" exclusionary, and a young person in a wheelchair certainly doesn't fit A&F's image of the perfect "all-American kid."
I hate to tell him (no, wait, I'd love to tell him), but there is no typical American kid. We come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and religions, and some of us even have disabilities, some of which might not be apparent to the eye. And while we might not all want to shop at a particular store, we have the right to not face outward hostility because we don't fit some illusion of youth perfection dreamed up by an over-the-hill guy trying so desperately to cling onto his long-past youth.
At this time, I was just over a week post-op from my hip surgery, and was non-weight bearing on crutches. Being that we always go shopping for awhile, and I was still really tired from the crutches, we grabbed a wheelchair so I could get around the mall more easily. This was my third time using the wheelchair at the mall since my surgery (yeah, I know, I have a shopping problem) and therefore felt pretty accustomed to the difficulty of navigating through stores while in the chair. However, nothing could have prepared me for the total shitstorm that is navigating through Hollister in a wheelchair.
First off, it is crazy even getting into the store. If you've seen one Hollister, you've seen them all- the standard mall entrance for this store is a couple of steps up onto a veranda, then a couple more steps down into the actual store. Stairs not really being conducive to wheelchair-operations, everyone I told this story to has said, "wait, how did you get a wheelchair in there?" They do, in fact, have a handicap-accessible entrance- around the side, masked into the faux-door decor where most people won't even see it.
Once inside, it was a madhouse. The dimly-lit store, difficult enough when you're able-bodied ("wait, what color is that shirt?") is even harder when you're trying to make sure you won't run over something thrown to the floor in a fit of shopping frenzy by a teenager laden down with Christmas money. Also hard? Reaching most of the products from a sitting position. Most of the stuff I looked at was hanging off of racks, since I could not reach a lot of the tables. And if I wanted to look at something hanging on the wall? Forget it! First, I couldn't reach it from a sitting position (which to be fair, I couldn't do at most stores). Second, and most important, the layout of the store made it nearly impossible to navigate between the tables and the wall. Hell, even navigating within the "aisles" was pretty hard. Even if the store hadn't been filled with rowdy teens, it would have been an extremely tight fit.
After all of the battling to even get through the store, it came time for the dressing room. Note to anyone in a wheelchair that wants to try things on at Hollister: even though you want to try something on, Hollister doesn't want you to try it on. The fitting room assistant helped my mom navigate the chair back into the "handicap" area, pushing all of the curtains out of the way to ensure I could get back there and apologizing profusely because of the difficulty. To be clear: she wasn't apologizing because she couldn't navigate the wheelchair (she did a great job with that and was super helpful), she was apologizing because the fitting room "hallway" wasn't designed for a wheelchair. Had the fitting rooms been cordoned off with actual walls instead of curtains, there is no way I would have been able to fit in there.
Given all of the past discrimination suits against Abercrombie & Fitch (Hollister's parent company), I was not surprised in the least. The CEO of the company, Mike Jeffries, said the following in a 2006 interview with Salon:
Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.Clearly, A&F has an image to maintain in terms of physical appearance. They want young, attractive, popular kids wearing their clothes- no fatties allowed, thank you very much. (In an anecdotal story related to me by my brother, a high school classmate whose hairstyle and dress were very much "punk" was told not to come into the store, as they likely "didn't have the type of clothes you're looking for.") But does that ideal also mean it only wants able-bodied kids shopping there? One discrimination suit filed against the company by a former employee who wears a prosthetic arm claims that she was demoted to the stockroom from the shop floor for wearing a cardigan to mask the arm (permission for which was granted when she was hired), with managers telling her that it didn't fit the "look."
Between all of the discrimination suits against the parent company in the past, and my own personal experience, I am convinced that they have purposely designed their Hollister fitting rooms to not fit wheelchairs in order to prevent/discourage disabled people from shopping at the store. Even their front facade is unwelcoming, telling those lesser-abled that they're not welcome. Jeffries has already admitted that the company is "absolutely" exclusionary, and a young person in a wheelchair certainly doesn't fit A&F's image of the perfect "all-American kid."
I hate to tell him (no, wait, I'd love to tell him), but there is no typical American kid. We come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and religions, and some of us even have disabilities, some of which might not be apparent to the eye. And while we might not all want to shop at a particular store, we have the right to not face outward hostility because we don't fit some illusion of youth perfection dreamed up by an over-the-hill guy trying so desperately to cling onto his long-past youth.
