Gilly Hicks at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL |
I was in Schaumburg/Chicago last weekend (as I have been a lot lately :)) for Gilly Hicks at the Woodfield Mall, and Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister at the Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue. Since Gilly Hicks items were featured on Abercrombie's and Hollister's websites, and I've had the chance to shop in-store, I have been thinking about the brand much more.
During my first visit, I spent most of my time going through the rooms around the perimeter of the store. The general layout entering to the right and going towards the back is: clearance, clothing, swim, and skivvies and more-or-less repeats with a focus on skivvies and clothing on the left side of the store. If you walk straight and down a couple steps instead of entering through the left or right entrances, you enter the central fragrance & body room.
Where the fragrance counter I wrote about a couple weeks ago is. |
Along the walls in the fragrance & body room, artwork of some gorgeous guys by Bruce Sargeant (aka Mark Beard) are displayed. ;) You may recognize Sargeant from his murals which are featured in Abercrombie & Fitch's flagship stores. Behind the paintings, which you can move, are larger versions of the same three...
Over one of the couches is a painting of Gilly Hicks herself - the fictional English woman who, in the fantasy, moved to Australia and opened the first Gilly Hicks store out of her family's home in 1932. This painting is presumably by Bruce Sargeant as well...
During this trip, I also went to look at the dressing room area. The dressing rooms are located at the back on the right side of the store. The fitting rooms are off the circular room with a photography and fashion book table in the middle. A couple I looked at were In Vogue and Australian photographer Paul Freeman's Bondi Classic containing his fine photography of sculpted Aussie men...
In the fitting rooms, there was a day-bed like seating area and faux dresser (the drawers don't open) with more fashion/photography books – like Bruce Weber's Blood, Sweat, and Tears. It was spa-like quiet in the room (totally different than a Hollister Co fitting room :)) – perfect for reading all day. Oh, and a giant mirror if you're actually there to try things on instead of reading. haha.
What do you think of Bruce Sargeant's paintings and GH's dressing rooms? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next Friday...
Stay Fabulous&FIERCE!
xoxo Aimee ♥
Images in this post are by Aimee for The Sitch on Fitch, and they may not be used/altered by a third party entity without permission from the author.