For the Grapes of Wrath action project, I thought I would base my studies around the minimum wage. After contacting the NYS Labor Union, I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere. So, I called some Tops Associates. The secretary was extremely nice, but she wanted me to give my name to be able to talk to someone higher up in the company. With the fear of losing my job, I refused. So I decided to stop worrying about things that NYS has control over, because I felt like I was going to get nowhere.
After thinking further about what concerns I had, I chose to keep it simple and something I’ve always wondered about in clothing stores. Why aren’t average teenage stores based around the average size? I was recently at Hollister Clothing Company trying on clothes, only to leave frustrated because I tried on the largest size of jeans there and they weren’t anywhere near fitting. You could say that I’m content with my body shape. I know it’s not me, it’s the clothing makers. Hollister being a popular clothing store with teens, I would have assumed that they would have a larger size range, considering there are people all shapes and sizes. So, that’s what I focused my studies around. I had my ammunition ready, with statistics and everything to prove what the average size is in teens and called 866.901.FAKE (3253). I was skeptical at first, thinking that it was actually a “fake” number, but I got a hold of someone. I talked to a woman named Trisha on April 9th, only to have my question thrown back in my face. She basically said that I shouldn’t shop at Hollister if I couldn’t fit into their clothes. Frustrated, I called back again a few hours later. This time instead of talking to the first person who answered the phone, I tried to get “the big cheese”-named Michael S. Jefferies. He is the CEO if Abercrombie and Fitch Co. (Hollister is a division of Abercrombie). But of course with Hollister being in 12 countries, I had no luck. He was either “unavailable”, or I could be put on the waiting list to speak with him (which I can only imagine is pages and pages long). I really want to be able to put my research to use, and feel like I was right. So I emailed them at BP_Tips@hollisterco.com. I kept my message short and sweet, but only to get the same kind of response. “We appreciate your help and will put your ideas into consideration”. They gave me more numbers to call, and things like that, but it was almost as if they didn’t even care. If anything, wouldn’t they want a larger population going into their stores? What’s holding them back is the fact that if your jean size is larger than a 9, then you cannot go in there to purchase jeans. My biggest point was if they made more sizes in their clothes, then they wouldn’t have to make everything so expensive with the fact that more people will buy them. Not giving up, I decided to call once more on April 12th. This call was fortunately the best. I talked to a woman named Jacqueline, and she helped me tremendously. I simply asked my questions about the size range of their clothes. She told me that their main consumers are pre-teen to teenagers. This being confirmed, she then talked about the obvious. Pre-teens haven’t yet grown hips and stuff like that. So, their average size is smaller than the mid-teen to adult stage by 3 whole sizes. Hearing that, I was stunned. Shopping at Hollister, I always thought that is was based around older teens; like high-school students. But talking with her, I realized who they really were trying to focus their consumer basis around. I told her I appreciated it so much, and that she really helped me. But, it shows that it definitely wasn’t easy as expected.
Doing this project makes me feel the pain and frustration the Joads have in Grapes of Wrath. Not being able to get one straight answer for a serious concern only brings up the question; who do we shoot? I had absolutely no idea how to dig into my first idea, because I was clueless about who to contact. but I realized that the “Hollister Clothing Company” is similar to “the East” because it is all protected. You have absolutely no idea who to call, or who you need to talk to in order to get your problem solved. I think that is why most of us found ourselves becoming frustrated because everything wasn’t based around one person. We didn’t know specific names, positions, or divisions to contact. Now I feel the Joads’s pain because you have absolutely no idea who exactly to point the finger (or gun) at.
