Up Fifth Avenue to Abercrombie and Fitch

We continued waking up Fifth Avenue and our attention was caught by a model standing in the doorway wearing an open black shirt and having his photo taken with some exciteable girls. We realised we were at Abercrombie and Fitch and decided to have a look what the visual merchandising was like in this store.

The music was thumping through the speakers so loudly that the base line made my bones feel like they were shaking. The loud music and the lack of lighting made the environment feel more like a night club than a shop. I had the feeling that I should be on the look out for guys to hook up with rather than looking at the clothes themselves.

There were four stories of this sort of thing and an abundance of scantily clad male models that seemed to guard all of the stairs and the female staff were not exactly dressed for a cold January day either. The lighting was so dark that I was finding it really difficult to actually see any of the clothes that were stacked in neat little colour coordinated shelving compartments. I wanted to find some blue jeggings but gave up after a few failed attempts at picking out black instead of blue from the pile. I had to pick them up and physically move closer to a light in order to see what I was holding.

The changing rooom lighting wasn't much better, I still felt like I was in a nightclub and trying to talk to any of the staff was nearly impossible due to the loud music. I began to feel quite intimidated by the women dancing on the stairs and the topless male models made me feel decidedly uneasy. In the end I had to get out, running into a Father with a look of dread on his face as he followed his daughter inside.