You'll Be Permeated By Its Odor - Further Travels In the Realm of Inappropriate Fragrances.

If you're walking in a mall and you come across a wretched stench that smells like a cross between hairspray and dung, then you've probably just walked in front of a Hollister Co. store. Not familiar with Hollister? Well, you can get an idea of what their attire looks like from the fact that their website refers to men as "dudes" and women as "bettys."

Now, I've only been inside a Hollister Co. store once - I was in the Glendale Galleria in, of course, Glendale, CA. They keep Hollister Co. stores very, very dark - perhaps so you won't realize that what you're looking at looks exactly like anything you'd find at any other popular clothing store - ugly, tan and boring. The generic and cheap-looking clothing wasn't what forced me to run screaming from that store, though. No, it was something much worse. They "fragrance" their stores - intentionally - with a noxious odor that could only have been generated in a laboratory in HELL. This fragrance doesn't contain itself in Hollister's walls. It pours out into the rest of the mall, stinking up at least a 30' radius with the Scent of Lame.

Why am I bitching about this particular chain of overpriced conformity? Well, specifically because they have brought their patented brand of shame to Manhattan.

I was reminded of the olfactory horror created by this purveyor of shitty clothing yesterday when a friend who is traveling to California in the near future (and who works in SoHo) posted the following status update on Facebook - "If California smells like Hollister Co. then I don't want to go."

Picture it - I'm going down to SoHo, a neighborhood I like to steer clear of in general due to its descent into Tourist Shopping Mecca, with Polly Prissypants who wanted to go to Pottery Barn to purchase a picture frame. We get out of the subway to find that not only is Pottery Barn gone, but a Hollister Co. store has been crammed in its place in order to appease the stupid tourists who come to New York City specifically to find and purchase the exact same shit they could buy in their own towns.

And then it hits me. Not subtly like in a mall. It's as if someone has smashed me in the face with a mallet, the stench is so strong. This Hollister Co. store is pumping their fragrance out into the street with such urgency that it obscures any other scent (no small feat in New York City) and hinders my ability to breathe. I immediately cover my mouth and nose and tell Polly Prissypants that I have to get out of here and I mean RIGHT NOW. The headache brought on by artificial odors is already threatening to render me immobile. I cross Houston Street and can still smell it, trailing after me like an obnoxious panhandler who can't take "no" for an answer. Barely making it out of there alive, I vow never to return to SoHo unless it is a life-or-death situation.

Who do these assholes think they are? Why are they forcing their "patented fragrance" on an entire fucking neighborhood? Isn't it bad enough that they've further shamed a dying New York City with their presence, allowing the vapid, rich, entitled shitheads who have moved here en masse in order to live out their dreary Sex and the City fantasies to dress casually in overpriced, poorly-made clothes that look like thrift store finds?

Fuck!