This is an excerpt of an excellent and exemplary ethnography by Lisa F. from Sp08. It received an A. It had excellent use of key etic concepts from anthropology throughout (Weber; colonialism; race; class; and gender). It honored the limit of 5-7 pages in length. Lisa's role as an employee strongly aided her participant-observations. She uses her interview material (emic) well (interspersed throughout the text) and she had excellent sources supporting her reading of the culture as a text--The store Ruehl in Paramus, NJ.
This was a great mini-ethnography; a wonderful re-construction of a social reality that m
ost customers and workers would not notice.
Ruehl No. 105: What About the Bulldog? by Lisa F.
The entire document is viewable at:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhnm7kdd_202365rzkw
The Abercrombie and Fitch moose is a dominant symbol in American style. The Hollister Co. seagull is very distinguished as well. But what about the bulldog? A French bulldog named Trubble represents RUEHL, pronounced “rule,” the more sophisticated and most expensive branch of the Abercrombie enterprise. Of the three largest counterparts of the whole Abercrombie company, RUEHL is much lesser known than Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister. Although lesser known, RUEHL is just as culturally significant as its sister companies. Currently, I am employed at RUEHL in the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey. Through participant observation and an interview with my manager, Lisa Rella, who is my key cultural consultant, I will explore the cultural significance of “my” store, Ruehl 105.
RUEHL is the most expensive of all the Abercrombie stores with a look that hails from Greenwich Village in New York City. RUEHL’s target consumers are college and post-college adults ages 22 to 35, so the clothes have higher quality and a more sophisticated look than the others to appeal to older customers. By this I mean that the clothing is less marked with “RUEHL” or Trubble on it, which appeals to older customers who are “over” the loud exclamation of where their clothes are from. “Ruehl is the first to focus on this new core customer: a person in the early stages of a career who can afford better quality but still wants youthful looks”(Hazel). The outside of the store resembles a brownstone house because brownstones are popular residences in the Village. The layout of the inside is very different from the typical store; it has several dimly lit rooms, ladders, vintage books, couches, intricate lighting, and something employees call “the bed,” which is a little section of the store made up of huge pillows. With the loud music, dim lighting, and the ubiquitous smell of cologne, customers either love or hate the RUEHL experience (Scardino, Ruehl No.925).
Lisa Rella, my key cultural consultant, was born in Hackensack, New Jersey but has lived in Rochelle Park all her life. Her father is Italian and Polish and her mother is Irish and British. In October 2004, when she was 18, she began working at RUEHL, in the Garden State Plaza, as a model, which is a person who works on the sales floor and does any number of jobs, such as ringing on the cash register, greeting customers, folding clothes, monitoring fitting rooms, among others. One must be 18 to work at RUEHL. After seven months of working she left the company to concentrate on school. In May 2007, Lisa graduated Ramapo College of New Jersey with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. To be a manager at any one of the Abercrombie companies, one must have a college degree. In June of 2007, Lisa came back to RUEHL as a Manager-in-Training, and now she is one of the stores full-time Store Managers (Interview).
My employment at RUEHL began in September 2007 when a friend, who worked there in the summer, called me and asked me if I wanted to work at RUEHL during the school year because I live at home. I agreed, filled out an application, and went to the group interview, and I have been working there as a model ever since. Almost immediately, you observe the clientele, coworkers and the interactions they have with each other. The interview was done in the stock room of RUEHL on April 21, 2008, and it lasted about 40 minutes. This was after the store closed because there would have been a large number of interruptions if we did the interview during operating hours. Also, while working, I did some participant observation of the customers and employees. Some things I saw immediately made me realize that there are anthropological concepts in progress, and other times I had to decide what concept it was and connect it to the observation. Everything that I observed I jotted down on paper so I would not forget because some really great anthropology topics occur in and around RUEHL.
Bibliography [Must include 2 – 3 anthropological concepts discussed in Kottak. You may reference Conformity & Conflict. Must include at least 3 other sources found through AnthroSource, Lexis-Nexis, NYTimes, and Wikipedia. Must include 2 references from your pre- and post- interview. Read up on your subject BEFORE you start interviewing. Learn as much as you can BEFORE to expand your listening and questioning. This bibliography is missing the followup interview Lisa did. It would be listed in this fashion: Rella, Lisa. Telephone Interview (dialogic editing feedback). 10 May 2008.]
- Hazel, Debra. (2005). Abercrombie’s RUEHL No. 925 Makes Customers Feel at Home. Retrieved April 20, 2008 from http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0205/retailing_3.php
- Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2008. “Mirror For Humanity.” 124, 133, 201-203, 206. McGraw-Hill
- Rella, Lisa. Personal Interview. 21 April 2008.
- Scardino, Emily. (2004). Ruehl: A&F’s Hip New Retail Concept. Retrieved April 19, 2008 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FNP/is_18_43/ai_n6212855
- Wikipedia. (2008). Ruehl No.925. Retrieved April 17, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruehl_No.925
FROM LISA: Professor, I am not allowed to take pictures of the inside of RUEHL but I would love it if you saw what it looks like. If you Google Image “RUEHL No. 925” some pictures will come up. I would love for you to get a sense of the inside of the store. Also, in the two articles I used, they talk about the actual store I work at! I just thought that was a little fun note! Thanks for a great semester.
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