Life is Ridiculously Awesome Vinson Cunningham on Shana Novak’s photograph of Kmart’s recently redesigned plastic bag, and its callback to the halcyon days of retail: “The hope was to convince [millennial shoppers] (or, I guess, remind them) that consumption, retail-style, could, in the corporation’s words, be ‘fun,’ even ‘awesome.’ 2016 was the hundredth anniversary of Kmart’s incorporation; the hint of self-consciously campy nostalgia in its new ‘look and feel’ seems c...| Shopping Mall
Mall Dad never lets his daughter and her friend roam the promenade without a cellular phone to stay in touch.| Shopping Mall
When Richard Simmons Danced for Us On October 8, 1994, fitness guru Richard Simmons arrived at Century III Mall in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, determined to entertain. Dressed in a hot pink tank top adorned with music notes, his signature short-shorts, and gleaming white tennis shoes, he embodied his larger-than-life persona that had been seen on infomercials and VHS workout tapes throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Apparently part of an event sponsored by B-94 FM, Simmons danced for a crowd of h...| Shopping Mall
The ‘Fish Music’ of Woodfield Mall “From Muzak to Hot Topic, the musical history of American shopping malls is not, by and large, a proud tale. But if the pioneering electronic musician Suzanne Ciani had been given more say, things might have turned out very different. Predating her commercial work for companies like AT&T and Coca-Cola, “Fish Music,” recently unearthed from her archive by Andy Votel’s Finders Keepers label, was composed in 1971 for the opening of the Woodfiel...| Shopping Mall
“It’s the mall with it all!”| Shopping Mall