Department Store Grandezza
Today in Graz, I met a friend for a shopping afternoon at Kastner & Öhler, founded in 1873 and once the first true department store of the old Danube Monarchy.
It would be easy to see the place as an old department store resisting the online age. Too easy, perhaps.
Because Kastner & Öhler was once modern retail. Fixed prices. (Yes indeed, in olden days the customer used to bargain with the salesperson!) Mail order. The first escalator in Styria.
Today, beneath gilt arches and atmospheric grandezza, the old grammar of shopping is still there: not just buying. Entering. Looking around. Wandering. Touching fabric. Comparing colours. Choosing something somewhere.
Online shopping has made purchase almost invisible. No golden decoration. No accidental discoveries. No perfume testing. No trying on cropped trousers just to finally know if the style actually suits you (turns out, it does). No perfectly coloured T-shirt discovered on the way to the bathroom. No scenic view from the in-house restaurant. And most important of all: no time spent with a person whose company you appreciate.
In the elevator with jungle wallpaper, I found myself thinking that something is lost when shopping no longer requires a room.
Not because everything was better before. The point is not always what we buy.
It is what happens on the way, and the time spent in between.
Today in Graz, I met a friend for a shopping afternoon at Kastner & Öhler, founded in 1873 and once the first true department store of the old Danube Monarchy.
It would be easy to see the place as an old department store resisting the online age. Too easy, perhaps.
Because Kastner & Öhler was once modern retail. Fixed prices. (Yes indeed, in olden days the customer used to bargain with the salesperson!) Mail order. The first escalator in Styria.
Today, beneath gilt arches and atmospheric grandezza, the old grammar of shopping is still there: not just buying. Entering. Looking around. Wandering. Touching fabric. Comparing colours. Choosing something somewhere.
Online shopping has made purchase almost invisible. No golden decoration. No accidental discoveries. No perfume testing. No trying on cropped trousers just to finally know if the style actually suits you (turns out, it does). No perfectly coloured T-shirt discovered on the way to the bathroom. No scenic view from the in-house restaurant. And most important of all: no time spent with a person whose company you appreciate.
In the elevator with jungle wallpaper, I found myself thinking that something is lost when shopping no longer requires a room.
Not because everything was better before. The point is not always what we buy.
It is what happens on the way, and the time spent in between.