Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Utsler)

Retail clothes store closed: big effect on Asians?

Although Qi Zhang can still smell the essence of Abercrombie perfume while passing 647 Massachusetts Street, where the retail store Abercrombie & Fitch used to be located, she can’t get in there anymore.

Downtown used to be one of Zhang’s favorite places in Lawrence because that’s where she can get name brand clothing without driving to the malls in Kansas City. But after Abercrombie was closed beginning of this fall semester, she doesn’t even want to go to downtown anymore. She feels like there is no place to shop.

Qi Zhang, a business major freshman at the University of Kansas, came to Lawrence from China two years ago. During the two years of her American culture and style exploration, she gradually became a loyal customer of Abercrombie & Fitch, because it seemed like the clothes in their brand always fits her 5’10 and 130lbs body.

One day Zhang came to downtown like usual, and she found out that not only the door of Abercrombie & Fitch was locked, but also she couldn’t even see any advertisements on the windows like before. “I was so surprised and I didn’t know what happened to them,” Zhang said.

Abercrombie & Fitch was closed on Aug 18, 2007, two days after the school started. According to what the store assistant manager Raven Correll told Lawrence Journal World, the store was closed because “We were the lowest in our district every single day, and they didn’t want to renew the lease.” But while it seems really unpopular among the Lawrence local people, a lot of Asian people who used to be its fans now have to drive to Oak Park Mall to get their clothing.

Abercrombie & Fitch joined Gap and became one of the national retailers in downtown Lawrence since 1997. It was accused several times for discrimination of fat people because of its models and giving preferential treatment to employees that they "ranked" as most beautiful and best bodies.

“Our medium size is like their large size, so it’s almost like a size bigger,” said Annie, the store manager of Gap next door.

But that seems like no problem for a lot of Asian people. “In Korea, our size seven or eight is like size extra large here,” said Se Hyun Kim, a senior piano student from Korea. “Sometimes it is a little bit hard for me to find something that fits my body.”

According to the book “Body Size Accounts for Most Differences in Bone Density Between Asian and Caucasian Women”, Asians have lower body mess index and smaller frames than whites. One of the comments for the news “Abercrombie & Fitch to close on Aug 18” on LJWorld.com, someone called LawrenceRes (Anonymous) said, “I've seen a couple of items in there that I liked enough to pay a bit higher price for but I couldn't purchase because I'm not a size 10 or smaller.”

Smaller size clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch sometimes might offend some larger people, but it naturally becomes a lot of Asian people’s best choice.

“I’m 5’4 and I only weigh 90lbs. I don’t have eating disorder, it’s just I have extremely small bones,” said Yue Zou, an Accounting major freshman from China. “I’ve been looking for jeans that fits me since I came here last winter, and they are either too big on waist or too short for me, even it’s a size zero. And then I found Abercrombie & Fitch. They are perfect for me.”

Another reason that Abercrombie & Fitch is popular among Asian people is because of its International fame. Although it closed its store in Lawrence and the one on the Kansas City Plaza, it seems like the company is doing very well in other places. The company just opened its first European flagship store in London in March 2007 and plans to open more. It plans to open the first Asian store in Japan in 2009, and it’s going to open a first flagship Hollister store in New York City as well. On the Forbes Global 2000, which is the annual ranking of the top 2000 corporations in the world by Forbes magazine this year, it ranks 1391, compared to the rank 1466 last year, it’s moving 75 spots higher. On August 22, 2007, the company said earnings rose 24% in the second quarter, powered by higher sales from more stores.

For International students, the easy way to follow the trend is to go to some stores that they’ve heard of. According to Annie, the store manager of Gap, the customers who comes in this store is a good mix of local people and international people, “I’d say half half,” Annie said. And according to several other retail stores in downtown, like the American Eagle Outfitters and The Buckle, international students who come into their stores also occupies a large percentage of total customers. While one of the local stores, Creation Station, said that there are some international people come in sometimes, but “there is a certain number of local people who come here a lot.”

The population of Lawrence is about 80,000, including 30,000 students from KU, and the number of international students is about 1,650. If half or a lot of its customers who come in to Gap are international students, that means not only international students are a big support of downtown retail stores, but also means most of international students are shopping in retail stores.

“After Abercrombie is closed, I feel like there is almost nothing in downtown right now. I lost one of my best choices,” said Kim.

Knowing that just having Asian or international students as supporters is not enough for a store to keep going, Zhang said, “I hope they are not closing the store in Oak Park mall as well, otherwise even if my friends and I are driving, we have nowhere to go.”

Pema Deki can’t go anywhere on Sundays.
Pema Deki, a senior Geology student at KU, is an international student from Bhutan. For most of the past three years, she has always tried to get her shopping or going out activities done by Saturday. Since she doesn’t have a car, the Lawrence transit System has become her major mean of transportation, and there is no bus on Sundays.

“Sometimes my friends take me to go shopping or go out, but not always,” Deki said. “I don’t want to bother them.”
Since the Lawrence Transit system was established in the winter of 2000, the service has improved a lot and it has provided a lot of convenience. Although it still needs improvements on a lot of aspects, because of the resource problem, it won’t make any dramatic change in a short time.
The Lawrence Transit System has two branches: the T bus is mainly for the general public and the T lift is mainly for people who can’t use T bus because of the disability. The ridership of the system is increasing all the time. In 2001, it provided 155,737 one-way trips on the “T” fixed route service and 44,408 one-way trips on the T Lift ADA complementary paratransit service. In 2006, five years after it was established, the Lawrence T bus provided 421,864 one-way trips, and the T Lift provided 55,176 one-way trips. In September 2005, the “T” received the FTA award for highest ridership increase for a small urban system in Kansas.
In 2006, it added Carpool Connection on its website, helped the University of Kansas start its Park & Ride system, improved passenger amenities by adding trash bins and route map decals in the shelters, and partnered with the University for the Coordinated Public Transportation Development Plan.
The Lawrence Transit system has been improving all the time. But on the website of the Lawrence Transit system, the two most frequent comments about what the system should improve is that the buses need to be more frequent and the riders want the system to increase bus times from 6am to 10pm or later instead of 8pm.
“I heard that there was no public bus seven years ago,” Deki said, “I do appreciate that it’s here while I am here, but I hope they could do better than that.”
“We realize that we need to add more shifts,” said Cliff Galante, the public transit administrator.
According to the survey that is provided on the website of the Lawrence public Transit system, 47% of the riders are for employment purposes and about 18% are for education purposes, which is mainly for the University of Kansas. And that already occupy two thirds of the total riders.
“A lot of riders are complaining about no late night buses,” Galante said. “Since a lot of riders are using T bus to go to their second shift, they can get there by bus but they can’t come back because there is no bus available after eight.”
Another problem is that the public transit system is available from Monday to Saturday, and KU on Wheels is available from Monday to Friday, which means there is no public transportation available on Sundays. So when people who don’t have cars want to go somewhere on Sundays, they have to walk there or ask for a ride.
“I don’t have a car and I don’t want to buy one since I’m graduating next year. So if I want to go to downtown on Sunday, I have to walk there and it takes more than 40 minutes from campus,” said Xiaosen Zhou, a senior Architecture student at KU.
Either more frequent buses or buses on Sundays and at night means more convenience and flexibility to Lawrence local people.
“There are a lot of things that could affect a person’s decision about what kind of transportation he is using, like gas prices and parking prices. They might change to bus because the gas prices are too expensive. We call these people choice riders, and we need better service to make choice riders become regular riders,” Galante said.
According to the 2006 Annual Report of the transit system, the revenue resources for the Lawrence transit system are mainly from four places: the Kansas state government, the federal government, the fare box and pass sales revenue and the local property tax.
“We have about $3 million dollars for transit system every year. If we want to increase the frequency, which means we make the Rout No.7 and Rout No.8 40 minutes once instead of 80 minutes once and the rest of other routs 20 minutes once instead of 40 minutes once, it requires double the amount of money we have right now, which is $6 million,” said Anson Gock, the senior transportation planner.
“It’s hard to get the money,” said Galante. “We understand them. We want to give people more transportation choices, but the city needs a balanced finical structure.”
According to Galante, because of the lack of resources, the public transit system won’t make any dramatic changes in the near future, but they are always trying to improve on small things.
“We always talk to the student representatives from KU about rout No.8, which goes through campus,” Galante said. “We are trying to coordinate with them and provide a better service.”
“I’m graduating next year,” Deki said. “I know that the T bus won’t change before I graduate, but I do hope that it could provide students who come to KU after me more convenience.”