As an unemployed 12-year-old with homework, no driver’s license and having to get permission from a parent/guardian when leaving home, shopping at the mall is a luxury.
To get a blue Orlando Magic Tracy McGrady jersey, a pair of A5 boots or a Yankees fitted cap, the options are to wait for Christmas or a birthday, shovel snow, mow the lawn or help Help the elderly buy groceries. While waiting for a gift, or a single $5 bill to multiply, the next best thing to actually wearing your favorite athletes’ gear, is an Eastbay catalog.
It was one of the first tools to make shopping malls less necessary. No need to ask for a hitchhiking, or assemble a group to walk around the Finish Line and Footboard knowing that no one will buy. Window shopping can be done in the bedroom, or outside on the stoop.
The shoes, the jersey, the cap, the tracksuit, it’s all in those pages so it can be read at any time. That includes new releases that are not yet in stores. The desired item may not be immediately placed in the catalog, but it allows a young person to start saving. A new Eastbay catalog includes pictures of all the latest clothing along with prices.
Young people can make plans on how to buy a favorite item or do the next best thing – imagine. Flip through those pages and someone might feel like Will Smith in “The New Prince of Bel-Air”. A sparkling Air Jordan tracksuit with a Chicago White Sox cap and newly released MJ shoes, suddenly there’s a new Fresh Prince in town – in the mind of the viewer through the catalog.
The magazine even has a way to dress all basketball teams in the same shoe. There’s a signature Nike shoe, as well as a DADA Supreme shoe, that can be ordered in almost any color combination. Whether the team can actually jump or not, at least they can all look like pitchers when they rip off their sweatpants at the goal.
Eastbay is a product more about the journey than the destination. Wearing something beautiful and new feels great, but that also has its limits. Most people can only afford to own so many shirts and shoes.
But once that category is taken out of the mailbox, looking through those pages can make young people feel like there are 20 pages of clothing in their closet. It’s a pause from the reality of limited resources. A fantasy world in which the only decision made is which color to choose. Wait, this is fantasy. Get all four colors. Show up at school in red and black on Monday, and blue and gray on Tuesday. Stunt on everyone, teachers included.
I won’t go as far as Nigel did in “The Devil Wears Prada,” when he mentioned the work of fiction. runway magazine as a “beacon of hope”, but the catalog is not simply a way to order clothing, shoes and sports equipment.
It’s a way for young people involved in sports and popular culture to have their own style book. They may never have a Will or Jerry Seinfeld shoe cabinet, but at least there’s a way for them to see all the pairs they want in one place.
Today, people can simply print out the items they want, whatever size the image they want, and place it on a vision board or even create a virtual image on Pinterest. Combine that with Amazon’s speedy delivery and popular sneakers that are only available at retail through an app that reject efforts like Jaren Jackson Jr., Eastbay has become obsolete. . These days, a mobile alert notifies people of the upcoming Air Jordan release date.
Sure, Eastbay hasn’t been practical for years, but for the kids of the 1990s and 2000s, it was always a good day when one of those catalogs arrived in the mail. Flip through those pages and you can also imagine the perfect fit to walk through the NBA tunnel or interview Carson Daly.
The best way to shop through windows with financial constraints and otherwise.
