An Evening in the J.C. Penney’s Men’s Department

As promised in Department Store Sales Make Me Really Happy, Aaron and I headed out to J.C. Penney to follow up on the stuff I had mentioned and, sure enough, the sales were spectacular.  It’s clearly a different feel from the regular Nordstrom, Charles Tyrwhitt, and Thomas Pink shopping experiences from my New York days, but the amazing thing is I was able to get 1 pair of blue jeans, 2 t-shirts, 3 polo shirts, 5 dress shirts, and 5 ties.  Before the sale, the total would have cost $540.74.  However, due to the discounts, I got $231.65 off so I only paid $309.09 for all sixteen items.

At Brooks Brothers, which I favor among my preferred stores, that would have bought a single shirt and tie (if you were lucky).  Of course, as we’ve discussed, I try not to pay retail for anything.  A few years ago, Brooks Brothers had a huge sale on their Golden Fleece polos and I went into the Kansas City store and bought one of every color.  I used the Platinum store card (which, obviously, was paid off in full immediately) and got another 5% off my purchase as part of some special.

The only down side is there is clearly a quality difference in the dress shirts. 

The dress shirts from J.C. Penney are the type that I would like to wear under a cashmere sweater with a silk tie, not the type I’d want to have on all day under a suit.  A few years ago, for example, there was a family-owned clothier that made a luxury dress shirt for men that felt exactly like heavy, Egyptian cotton sheets.  You could have turned them into a pillow and let your children sleep on them – that’s how perfect they were. And the J.C. Penney dress shirts don’t even hold a candle to the Burberry ones from Nordstrom I bought a few years ago.  Like not-even-in-the-same ballpark in terms of comfort and wear-ability.

Saving money alone isn’t worth giving that up so both have a place in my closet; just as the $19.95 Wal-Mart tennis shoes sit right next to the $600 Allen Edmonds, each plays a role.  That is my final verdict on the matter.

On a personal note, Aaron was correct in an observation he made while in the store.  Both he and I are just more comfortable in higher end stores for certain goods, and lower end stores for others.

We are the type of people that would buy cereal at wholesale in bulk from Sam’s Club or Costco, but but go to the same guy to have our suits tailored for decades, with our patterns on file so we could just call and have new bespoke garments finished.

When I walk into a Borsheim’s or a Neiman Marcus, I just feel at home.  When I bought my birthday-present-to-myself at the Columbus Brooks Brothers with Ashly, Ian, and Aaron back in September, I could have spent all day in the store.  That’s how I’m going to have my closet designed when I build my ultimate house (the one where I settle down for life and the grandchildren think of when they say, “We’re going to spend Christmas with grandpa”).

Related posts:

1. Department Store Sales Make Me Really Happy
2. Valuing Retail Stocks and a Look at the American Class System Through the Average Department Store Client
3. Kiton Suits Literally Take My Breath Away …
4. We Spent the Afternoon and Evening with One of Our Favorite People in the World, Diana Crane
5. Fried Cat Fish, Angel Food Cake, Lime Diet Cokes, We Rule, and a Biography Make for a Great Afternoon and Evening
6. The Secret World of Brooks Brothers
7. We Arrived in New York and Are Browsing the Stores on Madison and Fifth Avenues
8. The JC Penney Sale = Winning. Saving 51.76% Off Retail = Priceless.
9. An Evening at Home Reading About Securities Laws in the United States
10. Not All Your Investments Will Work Out at First … Just Look at The Buffalo Evening News and Berkshire Hathaway