Critical Shopping

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After last week's JC Penney brouhaha, the NYT's Critical Shopper column turns its gimlet eye towards a less controversial target: Hollister. "Step into the aggressively alluring world of Hollister and it's as if you are finally the popular person you always wished you were in high school, or Justin Timberlake and everyone wants you," Mike Albo writes. "Except they don't, because these people are hired to flirt with you." He actually likes the clothes, but still gets off some good lines, including our favorite: "On the way down I stopped in the fragrance room and sampled the Laguna Beach body mist. It smelled like Jolly Ranchers being breathed on my face by Hayden Panettiere." [NYT]