Amid bars, construction and pizzerias is a store like no other. In a town that temporarily lacked any institution for female students to buy cute clothes and accessories comes StyleSurrender, College Avenue’s newest retail establishment.
The store offers everything a college woman could want, from dresses to bathing suits, leggings to scarves, tops to jackets, all just a walking distance from campus.
StyleSurrender opened for business on March 29 in the same location that a similar store, On Cloud 9, used to reside on the first block of College Avenue. Although the stores are not associated with one another, the product selection and store layout of StyleSurrender are reminiscent of On Cloud 9, which closed in May 2013. “At first glance, [StyleSurrender] looked exactly like Cloud 9,” sophomore Karli Brummer, a marketing and supply chain double major, said.
Yet as Brummer got a little more acquainted with the material in StyleSurrender, she found fewer similarities between the store and its predecessor. She expressed that the quality of clothing in the new store does not compare.
Sophomore Sydney Fenton, an anthropology major, agreed, admitting that she bought one item of clothing, but that it was “a diamond in the rough.”
Brummer added that many of the patterns and styles used for pieces were not trends that she preferred or would wear, including an overused cheetah print. “I couldn’t personally see myself buying anything, but I could see how other people would,” she said. “Some of the items looked similar to things I would buy on mainstream websites like Tobi or NastyGal, but were a bit too provocative for me.”
Although Brummer and Fenton feel the store may be coming up short in quality, it makes up for the deficiency with its reasonable prices, as compared to On Cloud 9. According to Fenton, it is much less expensive in a good way.
Junior Lauren Straface added that StyleSurrender offered her a number of great deals when she shopped there for a dress. “I got 25 percent off for a sale, 15 percent off for showing my student ID and another 5 percent off for liking their Facebook page,” Straface, a hearing and speech sciences major, said. “They had really good deals, was much more affordable than [On Cloud 9], and its really good for people that don’t have cars or don’t have time to go to the mall.”
StyleSurrender began as a website in 2012 and their products can be bought online at http://www.stylesurrender.com or at their College Park location at 4513 College Ave.
Check out the store for yourself. It could be your new favorite College Park shopping destination.