We got a brand new neighbour today - after 2 years of empty promises American Aparel openned up in the city centre (it's on that street leading up to Molly Malone from Trinity, the one where the smell from the candle shop makes you vom.)
Inside the store it's the same deal as every other American Aparrel you've been to, except this one is THE BIGGEST IN THE WORLD!! Sounds impressive but that simply means more room for rails of overpriced gym-wear. The clothes is all made by ethically paid workers in the States which is a plus - the minus is that if you were to wipe your arse with one of their 45 quid tshirts and it would disintegrate into shreds. Double duvet toilet roll wouldn't do that, no sir-ee bob!
Another problem today was the tills. It would take less time to watch the entire run of Last of the Summer Wine than it would to get served in this place. In fairness to the staff it seemed to be an IT problem as every till in the shop was synched together so transactions kept popping up on EVERY till when someone got served. First day jitters for the system but you could see the poor staff flushing with rage (or at least sprinkled with dissatisfaction.)
Onto the buying and already the store has caused some scandal as Alert asked me to look out for anything shiney - or anything gold and especially anything gold AND shiney. Unfortunately when I saw a gold shiney jacket a devil on my shoulder told me to buy it for myself. One phone call to Mr Alert later and some 'hmmphing' on his part and we decided we'd both get the jacket and be shiney metalic twins some night. The jacket cost 52 euro, which isn't cheap, but isn't too crazy. It just is.
I reckon American Apparel is an alright addition to the shopping trail of Zara-Topman-H&M etc but isn't really anything too different or exciting. You could pop in once every few months and pick up some nice pieces but the stuff is basically the same year in year out. 6/10
Bird.
