I smell of exclusive mall stores . . .

I needed pants, so the Professor and I took a drive to Westfarms Mall this afternoon (we're both free on Wednesdays). As luck would have it, I found a decent pair at Macy's. I already had a $25 gift card from Christmas so, after discounts, I only had to pay 99 cents out of pocket. It couldn't have been easier.

Which made it a bit unsettling, to tell you the truth.

See, shopping for me is a love/hate experience. I don't mind going to stores, but I usually can't find anything worth buying. Then, I get tired and cranky. It can be a sight.

So finding something with relative ease was both refreshing and somewhat awkward. I had planned a long ordeal, and now I was free. I hadn't planned on having the extra time. What was I to do with myself?

The answer? Explore one of those "other" stores the mall offers. You know the ones. They don't have the big, wide windows that the other stores have. They're the ones with loud, trendy music pumping through their speakers. The dark ones that don't even have a sign on the front.

Yes, the Professor and I ventured into Gilly Hicks, the "Australian" underwear store owned by Abercrombie & Fitch.

We had both read a very funny (and also thought provoking) opinion piece on Gilly Hicks several months ago in the Hartford Courant (find it here), and we've joked about the establishment ever since. With such a goofy name, it was easy to turn anything into a Gilly Hicks-related punch-line.

And today, with extra time, we finally stepped foot inside.

I can only describe Gilly Hicks as a high end bra and underwear general store/museum. It is very dark and contains several small rooms and narrow passages. Like a museum, it leads you from gallery to gallery. It even has strange artwork of half-naked men with their hands yanking down their underwear for shoppers to admire. Honestly, I felt like I was in the masked party scene from Eyes Wide Shut as we tiptoed from one room to the next. I was waiting for the bizarre around every corner, faintly visible in the dark, pumping to the rhythm of the beats from the sound system.

Like any terror ride, you can't jump ship at Gilly Hicks. Nope, once you're in, you're in for at least a half dozen rooms. There is no escape. You are filtered from one space to the next until you reach the midpoint, a large area full of drawers of bras that reach to the ceiling, where those faint of heart can take the chicken's way out. And the place has a clingy smell of perfume that lingers on you for a good hour or two after leaving; a calling card, perhaps, telling everyone within ten feet "Hey, I just checked out expensive underwear in a dark room."

It being a Wednesday, the store wasn't busy, which was nice. Even with my wife by my side, such a store makes me feel very uncomfortable. There's something potentially pervy about a man surrounded by thousands of undergarments (though maybe that's just my Catholic upbringing lashing out).

And, after leaving, I still can't say for sure if I think a trendy, exclusive-feeling store like Gilly Hicks needs to exist. It is obviously targeting a teenage audience, and I think that is a bit troubling. The main vibe I got from Gilly Hicks was sex. The dark corners. The music. The perfumed air. Should teenage girls be coaxed into such a place? I suppose I wouldn't know, nor should I say one way or the other.

But the store is an experience. I'll give it that.