a love letter to the king of prussia mall

everything i learned, unlearned and learned again

the first sensory memory i can recall was the feeling of the chilled black and white marble floors of the bloomingdale’s at the king of prussia mall. i used to sit on that tile in a poofy floral dress i picked out for myself with my little legs sprawled out and bloomers resting on the ground. i liked this position because it allowed me to achieve a silent voyeuristic state where i could comfortably observe the theater that was the department store. my grandmother used to work at the chanel makeup counter at that bloomingdale’s and every single week my mother would take me to visit upon my request. i remember the anticipation i would feel the second i began to smell chanel no.5 wafting down the aisle and would turn the corner to see my grandmother beaming at someone while applying blush, her vibratious joy transferring to whoever was lucky enough to be in her sacred chair for five minutes. while she technically sold beauty products, anyone who worked with her knew that what she was really selling was the beauty of living. her vocabulary felt like a symphony in your ears, her appreciation for ostentation and fabulosity made the filter with which you viewed the world sparkle for a moment. her laugh was frequent and buoyant, her sense of humor was wicked and clever. she would do makeup for everyone from rich suburban housewives to drag queens to CEOs and treated them with the same high regard of respect, humor and confidence. unsurprisingly, she gathered a large amount of regular clients and fans who would visit on a weekly basis, she remembered small details about their families, would recommend different books and movies she thought they would like, and gossiped with a ferocity that made it feel like art. the after-effect of leaving the tight embrace of her presence through the silver double doored exit was that of wishing you could wear her exuberance as she easily as she wore her floor length mink coat.

those weekend trips to the king of prussia mall eventually morphed into middle school “hangouts” where for a few hours our mothers would let us roam free around the glassy floors. we all silently felt the comfortability of trying on a new air of maturity as we would pick up an article of clothing and say “oh my god that is so YOU” with a false conviction we hoped no one would see through. i experienced one of my first ethical dilemmas at the lord & taylor store at the mall in middle school when the “cool friend” i was with secretly stole a pair of cubic zirconia earrings without us knowing. she was caught by the security guard and we saw her being taken “into the back”. fear, panic, and any grasp of cool aloofness i was trying to embody went out the window of my mom’s light blue honda minivan. at this point, my grandmother had recently passed away, and the hot rush of frustration came over me for abandoning that sense of morality i built with her within those exact same walls. (this is dramatic, but i was 13!)

the king of prussia mall was where i first honed in on my dedication to being an earnestly enthusiastic person who treasures beauty and humoristic connection and it is also where i momentarily abandoned that out-of-place effervescence in exchange for micro denim skirts and cruel laughter. the fitting room at abercombie & fitch slowly undid the philosophy that being smart, funny and curious was more important than seeking acceptance from my peers. it’s hard to believe that reading j.d salinger is cooler than having a perfectly pouty face and toned abs when you are surrounded by 7-foot tall black and white editorial images enforcing this notion as your brain is wrung out from the artificial musky perfume. i would longingly pass by window displays of department stores, staring at the beautifully constructed satin and furs and retreat back to those loud dark stores that made me feel like i was nothing. 

i eventually won back my sense of self during a pivotal mall hangout when a group of my girlfriends had arranged to meet up with boys from a different school. nervous giddiness grew in our bones as we all exchanged introductions. immediately there was a boy i thought was so cute, he was tall, had floppy brown hair and walked with a confidence that had to be innate. i immediately hoped he would think i was cute back and made and effort to embody that empty laugh i noticed girls did whenever they were around a boy they liked- we all know that one that signals that you would never be funnier than they are out of solidarity. at the end of the night he pulled me aside to ask if my friend was talking to anyone because “she’s so cute and small”. my stomach dropped and twisted itself inside out into conjuring up a distinct queasiness that is only felt when your crush chooses someone over you. i went home and cried in my orange and pink themed bedroom, angry at myself for growing to be almost 6 feet tall, angry at myself for being angry, and most of all disappointed i had turned into an abercrombie clone that left me nothing but disillusionment. that night i started a new fashion tumblr (h0tcouture.tumblr.com 4ever), i started asking my mom to buy me coffee table books, i began sit in the aisles of grocery stores and read vogue cover to cover, i said no to big mall hangouts and started renting fashion documentaries on friday nights. 

a few years later i was a sophomore in high school, i started working an after school job as a shampoo girl at a salon that was owned my one of my grandmother’s friends who held herself in a similar unique level of warm vivaciousness. through her mentorship i felt like ~myself~ again and it helped me ease the confusion i felt without my grandmother. i also was making my own money for the first time ever, shoving fistfuls of tips in my pockets at the end of each shift. after months of asking “is the water too warm?” i finally saved enough to buy myself something i had always dreamed of: a real big girl designer handbag. at the time i was obsessed with The Hills and The Rachel Zoe Project, and the it-bag of the moment was the alexander wang rockie bag - this was what i had my sights on. my mom came with me and we walked into the neiman marcus at the mall and i sheepishly told the sales associate that i wanted to buy the olive green wang bag that was on display. she packaged it up for me and placed it in it’s dustbag and i felt charmed that this item was special enough to warrant its own little bag. i gave over my atm card and when i saw the total i panicked- i didn’t factor in tax into the total and what was in my bank account only covered the retail price. i reached into my tote bag and pulled out a giant wad of ones from my tips and handed the associate the balance. she stared at me with a mixed look of disgust and annoyance but i didn’t care. i earned this money to buy myself something that i wanted, not something that everyone else at school had. to me, this bag symbolized the ability to work toward building a life for me, not what was expected of me.

i am going to the king of prussia mall this week to open a new store for work, i feel oddly nervous because there is an naked vulnerability i notice every time step through the entrance. i think because it is the only public space that has held the totality of experience as a bow wearing toddler to a lanky abercrombie tween to a high schooler in an american apparel circle skirt to a college student who had every single lace corset bodysuit on the market to who i am now which is a weird constellation of all of those girls. it’s funny because there has been a lot of discourse around tweens are sephora and the loss of “third spaces”. my mall was my third space- i would go and roam around, form opinions about clothing, make my own (poor) financial decisions for the first time, and regularly eat a dinner that consisted solely of auntie anne’s cinnamon pretzels and free samples at the food court. i don’t know if i have always felt my best under the harsh fluorescent lights with pop music blaring, but i’ve come to become myself in that space, which to me is what a third space should be. 

XOXOXO

what was your relationship like to your local mall!!!! i love mall culture and how everyone has had a pivotal experience in a mall.