Critical Shopping

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To tackle all four floors of the new Forever 21 in Times Square, Jon Caramanica assembled a crack team of experts. (Fans of White Lightning might recognize one of them, "a keenly observant fashion blogger and frequent buyer of custom No. 6 clogs.") But even under four sets of eyes, the store refuses to yield all its secrets—it's just too big. Caramanica witnesses a young girl crying because she can't find the friend she came with; later, a saleswoman asks him where he found a certain dress, one she says she's never seen before. "Spending hours in the store delivered a disorienting funhouse effect," he writes, describing one of his experts "walking around the store while overhead speakers quietly spit out songs by Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors—or perhaps, by Chinese and Vietnamese bands that sound almost the same but cost a lot less." [NYT]