Shopping

Askadelphia. Question of the day.

POSTED: Friday, December 18, 2009, 7:40 PM

Filed Under: Askadelphia. | Shopping

Is there a brick and mortar store in Philadelphia that sells cloth diapers?

Posted by Marc Steel @ 7:40 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Great Holiday Gifts at Half the Price

POSTED: Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 8:25 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

jibjab.com

This holiday season, I received many holiday wishes:

George Hamilton is hoping for a gift card to Hollywood Tans in his stocking.

Beautiful Woman is hoping for lots of new customers at Cheerleaders Gentleman's Club.

Ben Franklin wants lots of new children to visit his giant statue at the Franklin Institute.

Pete Pryor wishes for the sounds of thunderous applause in Theatre Exile's "Any Given Monday."

Cupcake Man is hoping to find a good home after he leaves Cream and Sugar.

Help us make some half-priced holiday miracles come true by visiting HalfOffDepot.Com/Philly

Posted by Marc Steel @ 8:25 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Free People's new catalog will make you cry, for reasons other than its prices

POSTED: Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 6:35 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

freepeep

Take note, Sarah McLachlan and the SPCA: The August Free People catalog, which just came out today, makes us want to adopt a million abandoned pets. It features adorable pups and kitties from the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society resting on models' shoulders, hiding in corners and doing all those other cute pet things that make you scream "Please Mom/Roommate/Significant Other!! Can I have one?" Peek at the catalog here, and then watch the video documenting the photo shoot. And then maybe even take one home.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 6:35 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Can you tell which one of these fashionable kids is from Philly?

POSTED: Thursday, July 9, 2009, 6:34 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

clog2

clog

Susie G, of the click/clash blog, wanders around big cities New York, Boston, London taking pictures of stylish folk. She just came to Philly, where she documented a nice array of men and women, and high and low fashion. Can you tell which one of the ladies above is from Philly? Click here to find out, and while you're at it, check out the posts on Boston I dig what they've got going on, especially these great green loafers and this respectable rocking out of high-waisted jeans.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 6:34 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Peep at the Punk Rock Flea Market's vendor list

POSTED: Wednesday, July 8, 2009, 8:40 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

prfm_sign

For your sake, we hope Friday is payday, or that you haven't yet maxed out all your credit cards. Cause shit, man, there are shopping events galore. (Check back later today when the issue goes live for Shopping Spree's coverage of the Sugarhabit Warehouse Sale and Topstitch's Summer Sale, as well as a sidebar on the Philadelphia Record Fair. Oh yeah, and then there'll also be Shopping/Style listings on Grasshopper's Summer Sale, among other things.)

Phew. Anyway, additionally, there's the two-day Punk Rock Flea Market always a great place to pick up old CDs, guitars, vintage digs, tons of Etsy-like crafts and vegan cupcakes. Want to know more? They just dropped the vendor list in its entirety. Here's a sample, from Table 62:

I recently started the company environMETAL,llc. We make a bunch of recycled, reusable, earth friendly products covered in gore, blood, and skulls.

See that? Even if you're a confused, rare goth-hippie hybrid, there'll be something at the Punk Rock Flea for you.

Sat.-Sun., July 11-12, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., $3, Starlight Ballroom, 460 N. Ninth St., 866-468-7619, r5productions.com.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 8:40 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Oma Vintage owner gets love from Paper, Teen Vogue, world

POSTED: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 9:35 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

shopgirl

Michael Persico

Ada Egloff, proprietor of Oma Vintage, was totally ours first Felicia D. wrote about her in Shopping Spree way back in February, when she had but a mere Etsy site, and then again when she opened up shop in Northern Liberties. And now the world's gone and fallen in love, too. Daily Candy, Teen Vogue and Paper all recently covered her enviable I'm-23-and-more-stylish-and-successful-than-you-are story, with the latter's article being a serious lovefest. As Sara Davis says about her:

Working in Egloff's favor are several factors: one, she has great style, in an enviable, native New Yorker kind of way. Two, she's qualified: a healthy interest in clothing at a young age was nurtured by New York's extensive vintage resources and fancy Conde-Nast internships.

And then it turns into a Philly lovefest:

Opening a store had always been in the back of her mind, she says, but she credits the city of Philadelphia for making it happen. "Everything is so much cheaper here, I just thought: Here's a great way that I can do this thing that I love, without a lot of money." In New York, she says, she can't imagining doing what she's doing until she's "at least 30."

To which we say: Right on, Ada. Just don't go leaving us for that city up north.

Oma Vintage » Blog Archive » Oma’s Press! UWISHUNU and City Paper Pieces

Posted 2009-07-07 12:10:48

[...] City Paper’s The Clog var _u = "ada"; var _d = "omavintage.com"; var _l = _u + "@" + _d; var _m = "ada@omavintage.com"; document.write(""+_m+""); var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-890801-3"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} [...]

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 9:35 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Urban Outfitters usurps American Apparel's porn-as-ads strategy

POSTED: Thursday, January 29, 2009, 9:55 PM

Filed Under: Bad Idea Factory | Sex | Shopping

Damnit, UO. Now I can't buy your cute frocks.

Courtesy urbanoutfitters.com

In days past, Urban Outfitter's catalogs were somewhat classy. Yes, almost every picture was of a half-stoned girl in an extremely elegant dress emerging out of the woods. But they were usually covered up and naturally pretty, and the graphic artists decorated the page with ink drawings of bird, trees and flowers. It was wonderfully whimsical, really.

All of that went to hell in the spring 2009 catalog. Philly-based UO have ditched their respectable advertising strategy and replaced it with American Apparel's. Which it to say, they're making porn now. The new catalog is full of side-boobs, side-bums and maybe even a little side-vagina. Yes, you read the last bit right. UO is so committed to emulating American Apparel that they've one-upped their rivals and invented a new way of showing someone's privates without, 'ya know, showing them completely. Also, all of the models look 15 years old, and their despondent expressions make them appear stoned — on H, not on weed.

This sucks, because I have to boycott you now, UO. I stopped walking into American Apparel because I felt like a perv, and now you've went and done the same thing. Good riddance, side boobs.

cjmemay

Posted 2009-01-29 18:07:02

Not that boycotting works, or anything, but there are so many better reasons to boycott Urban Outfitters than side boobs. I don't even know where to start.

phillygrrl

Posted 2009-01-30 01:30:01

Do go on, cjmemay. Don't leave us in suspense...

Finchy

Posted 2009-01-30 07:57:08

I like side boobs...

Finchy

Posted 2009-01-30 08:00:31

I like side boobs! no boycott for me.....

tennessee

Posted 2009-01-30 09:47:51

It's really a shame that people are comparing UO to American Apparel, there really is no comparison. While the new catalog may show a bit more skin that usual, it is both tastefully done and beautifully executed. I feel they are taking on a more creative and artistic voice which I feel is a perfect fit and the right step in a new direction for them.

anonymousMD

Posted 2009-01-30 09:54:39

dear ms. otterbein: it is impossible to show the side of a vagina. the word you might have used, to be accurate, is vulva. the vagina, or "birth canal", is inside a woman's body and cannot be seen from the outside.

svv

Posted 2009-01-30 10:05:54

So, advertising has now become a more acceptable activity than porn? Is not the real problem the blatant commercialization of porn?

:::Philebrity…media, culture, music and more::: » Blog Archive » Rumblings: All Urban Outfitters Edition

Posted 2009-01-30 11:15:12

[...] >>> But fear not: Miraculously, URBN has not lost its edge. The new Urban Outfitters catalog contains enough sideboob to sufficiently rile the armpit hair of one City Paper contributor who’s already stopped going to American Apparel because it made her “feel like a [...]

killa bee

Posted 2009-01-30 12:17:44

those frocks make you look fat (the way you write is fat inside, regardless of how you look outside).

Paul

Posted 2009-01-30 13:24:37

Urban Outiftter's ads don't feel genuine at all. At least you get the sense that American Apparel is using them as art - controversial art - still part of a concerted expression that everybody there believes in. When you suddenly start using a young naked woman in an ad like this it feels like your pandering or just trying to get attention. If anything, that's much more offensive to women. It's saying they're just a tool you can use when you need some eyeballs. Pathetic. Either do it because you think it means something or don't do it at all. I imagine that this is why American Apparel ads strike a cord with people and nobody cares about Urban Outiftters ads.

Lucky

Posted 2009-01-30 14:53:43

Wait, let's completely ignore the fact that a large portion of UO's merchandise is stolen designs, or the fact that the founder alienates most of his customers by donating a large amount of money to the gay hating, gay bashing Rick Santorum. Yes, Holly, sideboob is the final straw. It's pathetic reporting like this article that makes the city paper a joke. It's staff is full of frivolous hipsters who cater only to their own kind.

untitled

Posted 2009-01-30 15:14:38

I thought Abercrombie and Fitch were really the modern pioneers where regular non-underwear catalogs were soft-core porn

Austin

Posted 2009-01-30 16:12:19

Oh good grief, grow up and dust the hayseed off your shoes.

VoteAudrey

Posted 2009-01-31 00:58:30

Yikes! Vitriolic comments abound! All things aside, I find it amusing that the way to market apparel is to take it off. It's like the proverbial bad pickup line: "Nice dress, it'd look better on my floor."

greg

Posted 2009-02-01 10:47:49

mmmm... side vulva.

fm

Posted 2009-02-01 13:54:42

Side-boob is a reason to look at a advertising. J O'ing and shopping simultaneously is called multi-tasking. I can save valuable time with urbn ads just as I have in the past with American Apparel.

Today’s Mission: 02.01.09 | Mission Loc@l

Posted 2009-02-02 04:25:46

[...] points out that American Apparel may have more to worry about than Mission District protesters. Urban Outfitters apparently has adopted the Los Angeles retailer’s advertising style of baring more skin than threads. Not that AA was a pioneer in that department. They simply [...]

Paul Johnson

Posted 2009-02-03 16:46:58

Sorry you feel like a perv but half my female friends feel sexier as a result

Embrace your double standard!

Posted 2009-02-03 21:35:49

I think UO's next catalog should feature a giant black raging penis, right on the cover. Oh.

Sarah

Posted 2009-02-04 00:08:22

Is it porn? Is it ripping off American Apparel? Maybe, but I don't really care about all that. The thing that irritated me most about the new catalog is that it can hardly be called a catalog. Maybe I am just crazy, but I like to look at catalogs to preview the merchandise. Most of the pictures in the "catalog" look like they have been shot by a disposable camera from 3 miles away. If the subject is shot within a reasonable distance, they are being obscured by foliage. I don't even know what they are selling in half of the pictures; the photo with the panty-less, side-boobed young lady happens to be for stockings and a duvet-cover. While trying too hard to be artsy, the catalog fails to do its main function- sell clothes.

Catalog porn makes me feel old and cranky - Both Sides of the Fence

Posted 2009-02-11 12:25:09

[...] Some 3,000 people have beat me to the punch, many of them in the last month or so.Here's what Philadelphia CityPaper blogger Holly Otterbein had to say: In days past, Urban Outfitter's catalogs were somewhat [...]

devan

Posted 2009-02-18 10:47:52

UO has made a not so subtle habit of ripping off AA's designs, so why not the ads? I admittedly am a former AA employee and it was a running joke with some of us here in the NYC stores to check and see how long it would take Urban to copy anything new that we got in. It was usually 3 weeks to a month. Shiny leggings, deep-v t-shirts, the romper, the figure skater dress, multi-colored skinny jeans, flex fleece hoodies...ALL jacked by Urban. It's kind of pathetic.

I thought City Paper was porn! « My Philadelphia Story

Posted 2009-03-07 12:22:47

[...] the Urban Outfitters catalogue today and came upon the photos that I saw in a City Paper Clog article a while back by Holly Otterbein. (Interesting how the risque half-nudes are in the middle, [...]

Ruth

Posted 2009-03-20 23:36:05

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. Ruth http://laptopmessengerbag.info

julia sakomo

Posted 2009-03-23 08:10:53

Excuse me, where exactly did you believe to have found porn in the abovementioned catalogs? Are you sure to understand the term porn correctly? As I have learned the hardest part of good journalism is research, be it a gaze into an up to date dictionary. I think you proove me right on that. Although, holding a PhD in psychology, I just had to stumble on this one: "I stopped walking into American Apparel because I felt like a perv []" Could it be that your problem is not a philological one but rather the symptom of something deeper which we have terms for and therapeutic methods? Did you know that most of the problems we have with the world do not have their roots in that world but rather within ourselves? And did you know that, however, most people try to adjust the entire world to their problem instead of the other and easier way of working on themselves? regards julia

Bob

Posted 2009-07-28 11:44:52

Wow, it's amazing how much hate is generated by one person objecting to treating women like objects. Funny how women are now so "liberated" they're not allowed to have any opinion that might be considered "traditional". Open discussion is a good thing, and some people objected to the author's viewpoint with intelligent arguments of their own. Others used words like "fat" and "hayseed" and really showed their immaturity and hate. I have every right to NOT buy something for whatever reason I want, and so does everyone else. That's capitalism.

Juliet

Posted 2009-07-28 12:55:10

Right on Bob! UO is worth boycotting for many reasons. Above all, for me, is their production model - "sweat shop labor".

cheri

Posted 2010-01-07 20:43:47

I'm sorry that so many of you miss the point. Sur most models are young, but I would be surprised if the ones they are using now are older than 13. And it is soft porn. 13 year old girls posed like used lolitas that one might find on a child pron site. If you are going to hire models and pose themin risque "come and rape me" poses, then at least hire 18 year olds.

tao

Posted 2010-01-10 19:08:41

I was hoping someone would finally hit the mark- the fact that they are using CHILDREN is the issue (the only issue in my view)! Pile on top of that the fact that they are all extremely underweight --- wrong wrong wrong message to women or girls.

meganc89

Posted 2010-01-25 13:59:12

the issue here is the fact that both companies are male-dominant and the primary sex we see naked in either of the advertisements is female. go on and say that the women chose to be in the ads, but who is running to companies? men. who is choosing which advertisements get published? men. and why do women have to take their clothes off to be sexy? why does our media choose to portray women as ugly unless they have clothes off? and the fact that they are CHILDREN is even worse. go ahead, urban outfitters. start 'em young. don't worry about their dignity or safety. and another thing.. where are women who actually have curves? for anyone to achieve this body type would be completely unhealthy. this is complete sexism.

little_K

Posted 2010-01-30 13:58:56

To the person that said Urban steals AA designs, that is very wrong. Just because they have similar items, doesn't mean they were stolen. They carry what's in. Walk into any similar store and you'll find similar items. I highly doubt that AA sets the fashion trend for what's in. It's like saying H&M jacked AA for carrying v-knecks and rompers. All stores carry those items now, they copy trends. As for the Urban spring ad, their always weird on their catalogues. I don't see the big deal, it's just a catalogue. It's not like AA's annoying porn ads that pop-up on websites. Also, what's the point of "boycotting" a store? They are still going to get business, it's not going to stop anyone from going there and handing their money over. It's really stupid to say that your going to "boycott" a store.

Jesse D

Posted 2010-02-01 12:57:25

So, American Apparel is the one designer that Urban doesn't steal designs from? BTW, why is the door at Urban always propped open? Born in a barn? Heating/cooling the great outdoors? Thanks for contributing to global warming, Urban.

Tara Seeley

Posted 2010-02-02 15:31:44

We just received yet another UO catalog, which I am calling "Lolita gets dressed up." As a mother of teenagers (boys and a girl) I find the whole thing disturbing--as your first responder said, "where do I even start..." Its the ads as porn, its the stoned look, its the relentless marketing to teens...

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 9:55 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Attention frugal and fashionable sailors

POSTED: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 9:20 PM

Filed Under: Shopping

Sailor Jerry (116-120 S. 13th St.), the clothing boutique that holds dear its tattoos, rum and seamen, is throwing an X-Mas bash tonight. And Santa's delivering — all merch is 20 percent off, with additional sales on gift sets. (When we say gift sets, we don't mean candles in a basket. We're talking about sailor onesies for your badass infant.) Don't bring the baby, though; they're serving free rum and Triumph beer.

Read about the slew of holiday sales going down this week in Felicia D'Ambrosio's Shopping Spree column.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 9:20 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Don't Be a Hater This Black Friday: City Paper's Great Trunk Show on Earth

POSTED: Monday, November 24, 2008, 6:21 PM

Filed Under: Shopping | get out

I'm usually anything but a Black Friday player, but I'll be heading out this year for two reasons. For one, everyone's predicting that this will be the Best Black Friday Ever, since retailers will be competing to make you forget about your recession-inspired frugality. But I'll also be shaking off my hangover for City Paper's Greatest Trunk Show on Earth, which so kindly starts at 10 a.m. That's definitely enough time to eat leftover pie for breakfast.

Held at the TLA (334 South St.), it'll feature goods from Philly's best designers, craftspeople and boutiques. One of my favorites is Julie Raboczi's jewelry, which is good for friends and sisters — her glittery necklace featuring a weed leaf is pretty and tongue-in-cheek, not obnoxious or frat boy-esque. Jesse Rinyu's prints of sad-eyed robots look like something off a Shins album cover, but darker. Etsy.com peddler Girlscantell makes prints of diagrammed bikes and cameras, which she places on everything from napkins to pot holders. (And seriously, whose Mom doesn't want another pot holder?)

There's a lot more where that came from. Waste time at work by scrolling through more Trunk Show goodies above. For all the info you need, visit citypaper.net/trunkshow.

Posted by Holly Otterbein @ 6:21 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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Here at The Naked City, you'll find breaking news, analysis, gossip and surprises about everything from crime and politics to the beating pulse of city life itself. We're good listeners, too:

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