Saturday, August 8, 2009

Saks Fifth Avenue...

...has an ad today on page A3 of the New York Times (I'm really stuck on this) that announces "SHOP DENIM, GET A GIFT CARD. Get a Gift Card worth up to $100 when you purchase one of our 680 denim styles in women's or men's contemporary denim, Thursday to Sunday, August 6 to 9. There's a picture below of a guy wearing torn jeans with the caption, PRPS DUSTY INDIGO JEANS, $460; FRED PERRY RED TRACK JACKET, $95; TRUE RELIGION T-SHIRT, $60."

This isn't about the insane prices. ($460 for torn jeans? Aren't you supposed to throw those away or cut them off for shorts?) It's not even about the $100 Gift Card. (Is that really an incentive for these people to get off their couches and come downtown? Don't they light their cigars with $100 bills?) No, I've long concluded that the target audience of these ads live in a parallel universe that I'll never understand. But what really caught my eye was the part about 680 denim styles. 680? Really? How much can you tweak a pair of pants? 680 times, apparently. But who would want that many choices? Am I expected to make a career out of buying pants? They're jeans! You only need two kinds anyway, Regular and Relaxed fit, which translate roughly into Young Person and Fat Old Guy. How complicated does this need to be?

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