[SCENE: Jenners Department Store Coffee Shop.]
James: I’ll have a cappuccino please.
Tychy: And I’ll have a black coffee.
James (aside): Nothing alcoholic on the menu, eh? An unpromising start for a Nocte Ambrosianae.
Tychy: I have some whisky in my bag. We can top up the coffee.
James: Let’s just drink the whisky. Fuck the coffee.
Tychy: I’m going to drink this coffee. I don’t want to annoy the till girl.
James: Oh my God.
Tychy: You should drink it nicely. In shots. Not out of the bottle.
James: It’s working. It feels good.
Tychy: This coffee is good.
James: Leave it here. Come down with me.
[They go down the stairs into the north wing of the menswear department.]
James: I don’t like the Adidas and the Superdry stuff.
Tychy: The staff seem rather boisterous. What’s all that shouting and dancing?
James: It’s probably scripted, to create a great impression of liveliness. Yet Superdry is very boring – a sort of plain stadium Americana – all bland pinks and greys.
Tychy: It’s not really clothing for adults. But Adidas is a bigger headache.
James: The khaki jackets are okay.
Tychy: The Adidas name and logo are all over these clothes – as if they were part of a uniform. I’ve often wondered whether all the kids who wear Adidas clothes are the members of some civic militia, which polices abandoned playgrounds and the quiet bits of the Meadows.
James: And what happens if you turn up without your Adidas uniform on?
Tychy: You get sent home.
James: These Ted Baker clothes are beautiful and very sharp.
Tychy: I’ve long tired of striped sweatshirts, but Ted Baker makes them work. He’s by far the best British designer.
James: I must buy something. Maybe a top.
Tychy: Oh they’re very delicate. They’ll perish in the washing machine.
Shop Assistant: Can I help you at all?
James: Sure. Here is £10. Go over to Greggs and get us some coffees and sausage rolls.
Shop Assistant: Err…
Tychy: These clothes are also rather pricey.
James: I’ve got a new credit card – a Barclaycard Simplicity Visa – the interest is only 6.8%.
Tychy: That‘s very good. I’m going to finish my coffee.
[A little later.]
Tychy: What did you buy?
James: This pretty night-blue shirt and this stripy top, which is bright but not too wacky.
Tychy: Let’s go into the main hall. Look at the Christmas tree!
James: It’s beautiful – the cascades of light! – and it’s a real fir too!
Tychy: I’m going to try and push it over.
James: Timber!
Tychy: But seriously, they must pay a fortune in fire insurance. The thousands of Christmas lights mixed up with all that wood! It’s like a pyre!
James: With mountains of designer clothing as fuel…
Tychy: I reckon that all those overhead beams are packed with sprinklers.
James: What else shall I buy? Let’s look at the Hugo Boss stuff.
Tychy: These clothes are not very exciting.
James: The Paul Smith clothes are little better. The hoodies and sweaters have the name Paul Smith plastered all over them, and I have no idea who the guy is. It could be revealed that he is a paedophile, and then I’d have the name of a paedophile all over my clothes.
Tychy: Hugo Boss designed uniforms for the Nazis, and yet many people still agree to wear the name of this Nazi emblazoned across their clothing.
James: Why don’t we leave Jenners and go somewhere else? What about Marks and Spencer?
Tychy: The menswear department of Marks is always filled with Morningside ladies who are shopping for their husbands, and they can be very unpleasant and aggressive. They glare at you as if you’re a stray dog which has got loose in the store.
James: It must be terrible to come home from work every night and find that your wife has bought you yet another cardigan.
Tychy: I think that half of them don’t buy anything. They just enjoy looking at the clothes and imagining their husbands in them.
James: Well why don’t we go to Armstrongs or the Rusty Zip? I know that they are largely fancy dress stores but one can occasionally find some real clothes in them.
Tychy: Armstrongs is like a landfill site filled with obsolete clothing. It’s a hoot trying on all the clothes, but nobody in their right mind would buy anything there.
James: That’s too much.
Tychy: Besides, the last time that I was in Armstrongs I put my jacket down on a chair for a few seconds and the next minute somebody had bought it. There was a frightful row trying to get it back.
James: It’s curious how depleted Princes Street has become. It once ranked amongst Scotland’s foremost shopping streets, but it presently contains shops which can be found in every market town in the country. There’s a Carphone Warehouse and even a Vision Express. Surely Princes Street could and should be regenerated into a fabulous urban centrepiece. The city frames Princes Street magnificently, but it is like a beautiful gold frame for a shabby and faded canvas.
Tychy: But the market determines these things. There is simply no demand amongst shoppers for your Victorian splendours. Jenners reopened after the 1892 fire with electric lighting, hydraulic lifts, and air conditioning, but this unprecedented feat of architecture and engineering was not merely a product of enterprise and ambition, but also of the monopoly then enjoyed by Jenners. Those conditions cannot be replicated today, not least because many more people have much more money, and a department store the size of Jenners cannot cater exclusively for the extravagant tastes of the high bourgeoisie.
James: I don’t believe you, or at least I don’t think that is a good enough excuse for the inadequacy of Princes Street. But Jenners fascinates me, and I would love to write a history of the store – or a piece of fiction about it – for the website. After 1893, they had a workforce exclusively of pretty young girls – dressed in gowns and frilly aprons – who lodged in dormitories above the store. Many of them were taken on from poor backgrounds and trained within the organisation, similar to the “lads o’parts” identified by the Kirk.
Tychy: Maybe you should do some more research. But let’s walk across Andrews Square to the Harvey Nichols store…
[A little later.]
James: I love the shop window installations – the figures look like angels from the stained glass windows of the future – tinselly android Christmas decorations.
Tychy: Harvey Nichols are very good at this arcade art, which is often agreeably Gothic. I admire the stuffed ravens decorating the walls of the womenswear floor.
James: I’ve found a Maharishi jacket with an embroidered eagle across the back, which is amongst the cream of the menswear. It’s over £300, but such a jacket is worth bankruptcy.
Tychy: I was on the top floor inspecting the liquors, and I came across some good stuff. Especially the bourbons. I bought a bottle of Blantons Single Barrel (£75) and another of Noah’s Mill (£50).
James: I’m sure that the people at the credit card company will understand that some things in life are priceless. Greed is good.
Tychy: Greed is good.
Tags: Adidas, Capitalism, Credit Card, Credit Crunch, Drink, Edinburgh, Financial Meltdown, Greed is Good, Harvey Nichols, Hugo Boss, Jenners, Marks and Spencer, Menswear, Princes Street, Rusty Zip, Shopping, Superdry, Ted Baker, Whisky
