If you’ve ever shopped at Intermix you’ll understand what I mean by ‘faux-boutique’.
Intermix—located on 17th and Walnut Streets-—is essentially a mini department store, but it operates under the facade of a boutique. The benefits of maintaining the boutique status are the ability to charge high prices, to convince customers that pieces are ‘special’, and to make returns difficult.
In reality, Intermix is as run-of-the-mill as Bloomingdales is. The beauty of a boutique is that it has a unique selection of items and a certain personality that is lacking in a large department store.
Intermix is uniform across the country and, thus, has no personality. The store must appeal to shoppers in Chicago, LA and Philly, so it has gone in a lacklustre, safe and identity-less direction.
However, the uniformity of Intermix affords certain perks for its shoppers. Since the store is run like a large corporate chain, you can make returns at numerous locations. Local sales can also be applied at other locations. For example, I was once at an Intermix in Malibu, and I found a blouse on sale that I liked. That afternoon I was at Intermix in the Brentwood Country Mart and decided that I wanted the blouse. The shirt wasn’t marked down at this location, though. I told the sales associate that it had been marked down in Malibu; she looked it up in the system and charged me the sale price. Excellent. Here the organization of a department store works in my benefit, even though I could barely tell I had moved from Malibu to Brentwood.
The homogeneity of Intermixes across the country is a reflection of globalization. Perhaps it says more about me that I seek out the same stores in every city I visit.
But that boutiques-—which are supposed to be local and unique—are becoming uniform is not a happy thought. The main shopping drags in every city are beginning to look alike and some might view this as a loss of culture and individuality. Intermix is taking over the country and bringing with it the blandness of Rachel Zoe and the thoughtlessness of Equipment blouses.