Sucking the Jingle from My Bells

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While the rest of you spent Thursday night and the wee hours of Friday morning in line for whatever deals you think the big box stores were serving up on Black Friday, I was in bed dreading having to get and go in to work. Thankfully I did not have to greet the sun to ensure that you bargain shoppers would be able to satisfy your consumer lust, however I did have to leave my house an hour before my shift to fight for a parking spot, which I found after having a mini panic attack. Not that I’m anti-sale or shopping for that matter, I just despise working retail during the holidays.


Every year perfectly normal people go bananas at the thought of little Jenny not opening the perfect number of presents on Christmas day, so much so that they turn into nasty, materialistic, hoarders during the holidays. It never fails; I always have to hold my tongue as a customer belittles me and reminds me that they are so much better than I am because I am nothing more than a lowly peon here to serve them. When then truth of the matter is that I graduated with a pretty solid GPA from a pretty solid university at a time when the economy wasn’t so solid and I happened to major in something that was not education, business, or engineering. I also do some pretty baller stuff on the reg, however none of that matters to the customer who is giving me their 50 cents because they were unhappy with the level of customer service they received. It also doesn’t matter how intelligent or over qualified I am to the people who keep cutting me off as I try to park and get to work on time. All that matters to these people is that they get whatever thing they came to buy, regardless of the fact that they are totally missing the point of the Holidays-fyi it’s not about gifts or condescending attitudes.

So despite the fact that sipping hot cocoa while watching The Year Without a Santa Claus happens to be my favorite Holiday activity, after the Nutcracker, I must say that I despise the season. I hate how nasty we get the second things get real when it comes to picking presents and getting stuff on sales. I hate the way most of us treat a group of people they know nothing about because in the back of their minds these people are here to serve them-you can tell a great deal about a person by the way that they treat servers, spa folk, and sales associates. I’ve also decided that this Holiday season will be the last one I EVER work in retail because dealing with the general public during this time of year truly sucks the jingle from my bells and the merry from my Christmas. And for the last time you cannot receive a refund with a gift receipt or exchange your sale items.

Bright Young Thing: Megan Huntz

This post was produced for Gamine online and is therefore property of that publication, to view the post in its original format go to BYT: Megan Huntz

On the rare occasion that we actually get dressed up, you know for those nights we go grown-up places not dive bar hopping, the go to outfit of heels, jeans, and a cute top never cross our minds. Thankfully, this combo has crossed the mind of designer Megan Huntz whose hand dyed 100% silk dresses are set to become the foil of many a pair of jeans and heels. Huntz, a native of Atlanta, studied industrial design at Pratt and even worked in graphic design for a few years before moving to Milan in 2003 to begin graduate studies in fashion at the Domus Academy. After spending years working for the likes of Max Mara and Meltin’ Pot, one of Italy’s premier denim companies, Huntz decided to leave denim to the masses and design her own line based around the most fundamental piece of a woman’s wardrobe, the dress. “No matter what you do, you can always wear a dress,” says Huntz.



While Megan Huntz’s dresses may be handmade in limited runs from 100% silk, her dresses are meant to be worn and washed. Yes you can wash these dresses in the sink or the delicate cycle to get the same deconstructed look that you get after washing your favorite pair of jeans a few times, which is no accident since Huntz applied the same finishing techniques that she learned in her denim days to silk. Recently she even threw a batch of silk into the Gulf of Mexico to see what effect the water would have on the fabric and was so pleased with her little experiment that she cut ten dresses from it. As an artist turned designer turned fashion designer, there will be plenty more art projects and experiments, like the video she did for the opening of Modern Atlanta last June, in the future.

On top of her commitment to making quality handmade garments, her love of the art of fashion and design, and her thumbs down to Vogue for its penchant for celebrity covers, Megan Huntz makes dresses that look amazing with boots, which means we have to grab every style available

FMM: Astrud Gilberto

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Tall and tan and young and lovely, Astrud Gilberto coolly strolled onto the bossa nova scene when she sang on the album Getz/Gilberto, at the suggestion of her then husband, João Gilberto the father of bossa nova. Her recording of “The Girl from Ipanema” established her as a jazz and pop singer, and ensured that people getting off and on elevators would be entertained for generations. Despite the fact that you’re most likely to hear her tunes on an elevator or a 50s/60s style lounge, Gilberto isn’t strictly for the geriatric set. Her recording of “Once I Loved” was featured in Juno, Cut Chemist sampled her in the song “The Garden”, and the Black Eyed Peas sampled her on their Monkey Business album-for better or worse.




This jazz vocalist’s cool and sultry voice was equally matched by her style. With her perfect black liner, blunt cut bags, and just the right amount of height in her hair-take notes Snookie and Flo-Gilberto is the kind of pretty that most girl’s today aspire to. Unlike June Cleaver or Doris Day, Astrud Gilberto has a bit of an edge to her, like a cool aunt who dresses a bit risqué, smokes, and dates around, you know like a classier Cher in Mermaids. I say classier because while her hair is closer to God and her eye-liner gives off just a hint of sex, the fact that the rest of her face is bare and her outfits are understated keeps her from going off the deep end. She also gives off the perfect balance of sex and innocence that escapes most girls today. I mean what pop-star now could rock just a fur coat and a smile and still look like the girl next door? Just saying

To Catch a Thief

She didn't look like a thief.

Now that the holidays in full swing and retailers are preoccupied with profits, shoplifters are taking full advantage of poorly trained seasonal workers and a sales team that is spread too thin. While managers and sales associates are busy following shoppers based on cultural biases, money is walking right under their noses and out the door.


With most stores barely turning a profit these days, it is no wonder that they are training their sales teams to profile shopper based on their behavior. Any sales person worth their salt is taught to be on the look-out for people carrying bags from stores not in their mall, people who continue to send you on wild goose chases all over the store, and people wearing large coats that seem to gain weight as they walk through the store, amongst other things. In sales meetings you are told that shoplifters can be anyone from stroller moms to teenage girls and that crime knows no color, however time in and time out you are told to watch the young African American and Hispanic shoppers who are less than well dressed, suggesting a certain socio-economic status, while other shoppers are allowed to move freely through the store.

Most lost prevention specialists will tell you that there are two kinds of shoplifters, non-professionals who steal simply because the opportunity presented itself and professionals who steal for a living. They will also tell you that despite what anyone believes, there is no certain look that shoplifters adhere to. Most shoplifters are adults who can pay for the items that they are stealing, often buy and steal merchandise in the same visit, and are very rarely caught. Armed with this information, one can only assume that the current policy embraced by store managers is allowing these experienced shoplifters to fall through the cracks, mainly because they are too busy turning their backs to follow the wrong shoppers. They also often react improperly to store alarms that are usually tripped by paying customers due to human error- experienced shoplifters hardly ever make a sound when exiting a store because they remove sensors from garments long before making their exit.

This Holiday season as you pick up your last minute gifts, take five minutes to notice who is watching whom and why. Very rarely will you see a sales associate monitor a stroller mom, a group of Starbucks carrying young women, or the well dressed gentleman who you just saw slip something into his bag because they are too busy watching the people who look like shoplifters. Much like a child will never get kidnapped by someone who looks like a bad guy, stores will never catch a thief who doesn’t look like one.