So I made a rather reluctant trip to a place called Lotte Outlet today. It was an interesting experience walking around all the "trendy" stores, looking at what's "in style". Honestly the most laughable, and at the same time, depressing thing about this little adventure was gazing at some of the prices of these items...Thousand dollar coats, over a hundred dollar shirts, purses, and scarves etc. Here are a few pics...
Here's a nice looking shirt...when I saw it I was immediately intrigued because it is something that I would wear. I walked towards it, hopeful, but all the while forgetting that I was in a "trendy" store. I thought to myself "Couldn't cost much more than $20 (or around 20,000 won)" I just about passed out when I saw the actual price...it was 270,000 won (about $270). I didnt know whether to laugh or try to ask an employee if they were seriously selling this shirt at such a price. Considering that I don't know the language to well I chose the latter and laughed. Honestly though I was somewhat angered by the audacity of this company to charge such a price for a shirt that was probably made by some kid in a sweatshop in Thailand. At that price I would hope it was handmade by some white-collar designer in Europe or America. In the end the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Here is a picture of the price of the above shirt.
Here's another interesting item. A very thin, but nice looking, scarf. I noticed this because it reminded me of some people I knew back in America that enjoyed them. Nevertheless I touched the material and it seemed nice but thin. Again, in my naïveté, I figured "Can't be much more that $20-50 (or around 20,000-50,000 won). Again, however, I received a swift right hook to the face when the actual price was reviled to me...460,000 won (or around $460). Similar to the shirt event I was sent aback in surprise. Again I figure the thing was made by a kid in a sweatshop but perhaps it was handmade by someone who charges a few hundred dollars an hour. At a price like that I would hope that there was gold somehow weaved into the fabric.
Here's a picture of the price tag of that "in vogue " looking scarf. You'll notice that it says "Bright Yellow" on it. In that case, given the other picture doesn't seem to show much yellow, I'm willing to dabble my brain in the possibility that perhaps the price was wrong but this was the tag attached to that "fine" piece of cotton.
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Now the experience at Lotte Outlet wasn't all depressing. There was a Levi store with some reasonably price jeans and outside the Levi store was a little section of even more reduced priced clothing from inside....Perhaps if I had gazed into some other stores I might of found some other reasonably priced articles of clothing.
I long for a Wal-Mart, or a Kohl's in this country but nearly every clothing store I walk into screams of fleece (to defraud or to charge exorbitantly) in my opinion. I suppose my hopes may be realized in stores such as E-Mart and Lotte Mart which apparently are the Wal-Marts of Korea, but I have yet to really check out the clothing situation in these stores.
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This is probably one of my most cynical blogs yet about life in Korea. I am certainly aware that such prices for clothes is not isolated in Korea, but after being here for almost 3 months and seeing so many more ridiculous "fashionable" stores than back home my I'm just about done with any sort of shopping all together.
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The revelation I came to as I typed this blog...
When I ponder clothing styles and the insane prices that must be paid to be within that group it really makes me realize how sinful, fickle, pathetic, and vain humanity really is. Every 5-10 years the westernized world picks new clothes that it considers to be "nice", "cool", stylin" "popular" (and just about any other adjective you can think of) and people go out and buy those clothes for whatever reason, whether it be to find acceptance or just to fill some empty void with the styles and pleasurable looking linen of the current decade.
But then after 10 years or so humanity realizes that the current styles don't bring acceptance from others like they used to, or that that void that seemed closed before is starting to open back up as all the clothes that were fun and pleasurable to wear over the last few years are not as much so anymore. So humanity goes looking for new style, and exciting clothes to find that acceptance, to fill that void. Ultimately however the only one that will truly accept you as you are, and the only one who will ever fill that void is Christ. Outside of Christ, humans will never be able fully accept and love each other, no matter what they do, and that void will never stay full with the temporal things of this world.
Yes considering fashion and all the "things" of this world make me all the more ready for the return of Christ so that all this "stuff" can be utterly destroyed and the new heaven and new earth can be upon us...Revelation 21:1 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone."
