PCPS Light: How Costco’s Sweatshirts Caused a Gen X Pandemonium
Speaker 1 0:13
Now Pepsi Light has even more fresh lemony taste, and still only half the calories of regular colas. It's the freshest, most refreshing cola around. Welcome
Michelle Newman 0:29
everyone to another light episode of the Pop Culture Preservation Society. These are the refreshing episodes we give you in between the fuller seasons that are light on research, preparation, and editing, but never lied on content. And again, with a hint of lemon,
Carolyn Cochrane 0:47
just a little yes, yes, just a
Michelle Newman 0:48
whiff makes it a little fresher. Okay, if you asked me to pick 10 words or phrases to describe or sum up my early adolescence, like I'd say between like ages 11 and 14. Here is a few that would be included: stickers, sticker books, tap dancing, sweet dreams, romance books, making collages. You know, cutting up all your magazines and then you know putting on your bulletin board or your peachy folder, and esprit, Esprit, that one word-it's a French word which translates literally to mean spirit, mind, or soul. But that one word conjures up a lot for us Gen X kids. It conjures up a lot of memories, a lot of feelings, smells, Colors, experiences, right? And for me, Esprit was probably my very first experience with a brand and like the status that wearing it brought. And I know I've shared how my sister and I were very lucky to get to go to the giant Esprit outlet in San Francisco every summer for about three summers, probably like 8081, 82, and we got so much more though, you guys, than just the logo stuff because esprit was a whole line of clothing. I mean, I had mini skirts and tops and shoes because the stuff was just dirt cheap. My favorite pair of penny loafers I ever had were these pale pink, really like low profile. Don't think of like Bass Weegian penny loafers. Think almost like a ballet flat type, a Mary Jane type flat. They were so soft, and I had light pink ones, and of course bags, tote bags, bags. We had all the bags, and the the outlet itself in San Francisco. It was a big deal. People would travel from all over. We were we happened to be there. We lived in you know Washington at the time. We happened to go because my stepfather had would go to this furniture mart every summer in San Francisco, and my mom loved San Francisco, so they went like twice a year. And in January, we always had this old lady babysitter who would come stay with us. But but that literally, I think my mom found from a service. You know, she would come and like stay in our house with us, and we didn't really like her so much. But, but in the summer, would go with and the the outlet for those of you listening, because I know there's many of you listening that also got to experience this outlet either because you lived in the Bay Area or this was a like a this was a you know people would travel to go to this outlet. It was this very open, like warehouse industrial-looking, you know, exposed pipes and beams and stuff. And it was just loud music, music, music. And it wasn't like don't picture like a department store where everything's hanging on racks. Picture more like the IKEA storeroom where it's just giant, you know, like boxes. When I say like a box that would be like open on one side, but just close in it that you're just rifling through, right? And another thing that's I have a very strong memory about the Esprit outlet was that there were communal dressing rooms, so the all the shoppers, you had to kind of navigate these massive open communal dressing rooms where it was teenagers, kids, parents. Because my mom used to also get lots of you know like cute sweatshirts and sweats and stuff there, and you are just side by side trying on just so much of, and you had to stand in line forever to get to the dressing room, so it was basically yeah. I think IKEA is the best way to not the not the cool part of IKEA where you get to go through all the little rooms, but you know where it spits you out and you're in the warehouse. Picture all those pallets and boxes, but full of clothes and shoes and bags. There was even a cafe there, kind of like IKEA. Fun fact, not quite so fun, but I was wondering today what happened to the outlets because what did happen? You can see you Google esprit outlets and you'll see them. You'll see the San Francisco one. There was always a huge line of people to get in.
Michelle Newman 4:53
It was a big deal. But the late by the late 80s and the early 90s. The co-founders of Asprey had a very public divorce, and basically that just led to corporate restructuring, and eventually they sold it. They sold it all off. So, a divorce, a fight-I don't know. But yeah, I had all the bright colors, everything. What do you guys remember about, or what does that word esprit bring to your mind?
Kristin Nilsen 5:24
I first the first thing that comes to me are the ads in 17 magazine. Oh, for sure, the ad campaigns for esprit were aspirational. They were, and the funny thing is, I loved these ads. I would tear them out of the magazines. I would put them on my walls. They were so well crafted. the The art direction is so fantastic, and the and the people in the ads were the people that I wanted to be because they were just like slightly alternative. Things were slouchy, and the hair was might be a little bit crazy. It wasn't coloring in the lines necessarily, and the colors were loud, and I really, really liked that. I didn't quite have the confidence to pull that off on my own, and I didn't have any esprit of my own ever because we didn't really do name brands in my house, and I never asked. I never asked, and I sort of no, that's not true. I was going to say I kick myself now, but I was a child. He was. I was figuring things out, right? And we went to J.C. Penney and we went to Sears, and you know, on occasion we'd go to Southdale and do different stores. But I, whatever the it thing of the moment was, if it had a name brand attached to it, I never even asked because I just figured it was too expensive, and the answer would be no. But I just think it's interesting that I didn't even pine for it, but I did, but I did worship at the feet of the advertising. The ads are
Michelle Newman 6:49
so great, like, and they're iconic. You can all picture the one with the girls saluting, or you can picture the ones where they're so layered and they have like that big side pony with the big pink tulle bow. And I will say that even though I said that this was my first experience with a brand and wearing it, I was you know 11 and 1011, 12 years old. It had zero to do with me being like I have to wear that brand because then I'll be cool. I think what it was is that we discovered my mom somehow found out there is an outlet store in San Francisco that sells this really colorful, cute clothing, and we can go get a sweatshirt for $2. You know, I mean, it was ridiculously cheap, and a lot of it was like seconds too. Because I can remember you could find like a section of the outlet, maybe where maybe the tag was cut, or maybe there was a little fray, and man, we loaded up our bags with all that kind of stuff. But it was to us. We truly just loved the clothes. Like that's how I dress. Like I wanted to wear the cute striped mini skirts and the whatever. Probably not at first. I would imagine by the time I was about 13, I felt pretty cool that I had so much esprit stuff. But it at first we just really loved it, and we could go get it for really when we were happened to be in San Francisco anyway, you know.
Carolyn Cochrane 8:04
Yeah, I would think because I really tried to think back to when it was super popular and if I had anything. And to be honest, the ads totally remember those. I think my sister had more of this stuff because I would argue that I probably didn't think it was very preppy, and so it was not going to fall into that. Was kind of my I was I'm still living to into that prep. Yeah, but I could. There was a very short window of time where my sister and I could share clothes, and we kind of would a little bit. Like I could actually fit into some of her pants, and she whatever. So I think that I would wear some of her esprit stuff, but I would have never owned it myself, and wouldn't have. I don't want to say wouldn't have wanted to be caught in it, but if my mom was going to buy me something, it was going to be a fair isle sweater or it wasn't
Kristin Nilsen 8:53
classic enough for you. Like you said, be into in those classic guard in between khaki and navy. But I would borrow it. My sister now. So my
Michelle Newman 9:02
sister is exactly your age, and she obviously too was very into us, Bree. We definitely had a lot of stuff that we had to share. I remember that, and maybe I don't know if we were exactly, and maybe the first year when I was 10 and she was 13, it wasn't that way. But I do remember towards the end, it was these are the communal things. These are your things, Michelle. Like maybe the pants didn't fit us both, but the sweatshirts and stuff we definitely had to share. We would get like our own bags and our own shoes, obviously. But so anyway, guys, we need to talk about this because recently there has been an enormous craze, a resurgence of a spree. I like to call it the Costco craze, and Gen X has lost their ever-loving collective minds over it. It seems like every Gen Xer on social media this summer, especially if they have a platform of any kind like us, has been posting. About the Esprit sweatshirts that Costco started selling in, I think June, maybe late June. There are three. There's a green one with Esprit, the logo written in white. There is a cream one where it's written in the multicolored letters, and there is blue on blue. That's it. There's just three sweatshirts and just a sweatshirt, and they're not even the highest quality of sweatshirt, but they were $16 or $17, and everybody has lost their mind. I mean, so much so that these social media posts were so rampant, people lamenting that my Costco here in North Carolina doesn't have it, and maybe the author or someone else commenting, mine does. Here in you know Nebraska, I'll buy you one. DM me your address. So friendships are being formed. People are being like going out of their way to help everybody have a esprit sweatshirt. They're making friends at the Costco, at the at the Costco, at the display, I the collective joy has been through the roof. All the happy neurotransmitters have been firing in everyone, and it's been really really fun. I will say for little Michelle, when I went to Costco and I saw that giant stack of sweatshirts, and so I was seeing that logo again 100, 300 times because they have them all folded exactly. So the logo is like logo, logo, logo, logo. You guys, the when I turn because I was there on a mission, I had heard about this, and I'm like, I'm going to my Costco today to see if they have them. When I saw those, I can't even tell you like what happened in my body. Just a logo like that that I hadn't seen in so long. It's everything we talk about on this podcast in a million different ways. It's music. It's it's a toy you haven't seen. It's a magazine cover you haven't seen. I don't care. It's a shoe brand. It's a. It was so joyful to me that I raced, you know, my card over as fast as I could. I'm texting everybody that I know, like I'm texting high school friends that I haven't texted in 15 years, but I have their phone number. I'm like, hey, it's Michelle. Do you want a Costco sweatshirt? A spree sweatshirt. You talk about making friends. A lady was there, holding it up to herself, and she's then I can tell she's frustrated, and she's then texting. I'm kind of doing the same because I'm texting my sister. Where are you right now? I'm only going to be at Costco another 10 minutes. You know, blah blah blah. What size do you want? She says to me, "I don't know what size to get my friend. Would you mind holding this up? She's about your height. Would you hold it up to you so I can just see how it would fit? I was like, "Honey, I'll do one better. I'm putting it on. And I was like, "Are you texting her right now? She's like, "Yes. I'm like, "All right. Well, I'm kind of in between. I can't decide if I want a large or an extra large. I'm going to put it on. I'm going to put both sizes on, and you can take my picture. Here's me zero makeup, baseball cat. What? I didn't care. I'm smiling as big as I can.
Michelle Newman 13:10
I'm like, take my picture and text her because I was just giddy, and I was like, I need to help every Gen Xer who wants one of these get one. So she did. I did. We strike up a conversation. Turns out, she used to also go to the San Francisco outlet store the same summers I did. So we're standing in a Costco in Denver, Colorado, thinking, "What if we were at the San Francisco outlet on the same day? So it was crazy,
Kristin Nilsen 13:34
repeating itself.
Michelle Newman 13:35
It was crazy. I was so excited to see all the posts. So of course I had to come and write a a sub an article for our Substack, and this was I think I talked in a previous light episode about how you all listeners you can you can go explore our Substack pages because we're all writers. I mean, you all know Kristen's writer, but I don't know if you know that we Carolyn and I have done writing as well, and so it's been a really fun way to get back into writing. And yeah, I ran home and I texted you guys, I think, or I messaged you guys, and I was like, I'm writing something for the Substack. I have like, I have to, I have to about what
Kristin Nilsen 14:16
this moment means and what it's what it's lighting up in people and right, yeah, right, yeah.
Michelle Newman 14:22
So, yeah. So, if you go to sub, like, there's an app, or you can just go to like Substack.com, I believe.
Kristin Nilsen 14:27
So, I posted this Substack to my personal Instagram account. We like to talk about our viral moments, and you know, I just have a, I don't have a huge following. I'm not like the PCPS. I'm just Kristen, so I don't have a giant following. So, for a post of mine to get 148,000 views and 6000 likes and 5000 shares and 400 comments, that's a moment, people. Like that's I just and I felt like every day I had to check in on it, like I was babysitting the post to make sure people weren't fighting in the comments. It's like I say. Yeah, there was there was stuff going on, right? There was a lot of stuff going on, and it was a lot of it was what Michelle was talking about, where people were like, "I don't have them. I'm in Asheville, North Carolina. Some people like, "I'm in Charlotte. Do you want to drive up here, or I'll get you on. I said, "Give me your address. I got two. Can I send it to you? Like people were using it as a like a database of where to find their esprit sweatshirt, or to bemoan the fact that they didn't, or to celebrate that they did.
Michelle Newman 15:28
I don't know if Kristen and your your share of this, if you got this in the comments, we did when when we shared this on the Pop Culture Preservation Society's Instagram. We had many a person, many a comment saying how this was such terrible consumerism. This is so gross right now when everything else is going on and all this kind of
Kristin Nilsen 15:51
the evils of fast fashion, where they're
Michelle Newman 15:54
probably made, how they're made, and you know we would like to kind of address a couple of those. I think that we we saw we we heard everybody's opinion, and we can say yes, you can absolutely have that opinion. Two words that just kept I've said them like you know a drinking game on this episode. I've said them four times already, but collective joy, collective joy, and we that is so needed right now. Yeah. And if a $17 sweatshirt is doing that, you know, Kristen, you just said people were saying in in your thread, "What? I'll buy it for you. Come here. Can you drive up here? Whatever. Nobody's asking. Who did you vote for? Nobody's asking. Whatever they're saying, this is this is something that's bringing us together, and yes, maybe there are some gross parts to it, but I just wanted to read two comments we actually got on our Substack that I think really put words to how we're feeling about it, and you know, Brandi says this article made me tear up. Life was so much simpler. Let us have our moment of nostalgia, and I think from that she's saying like, let us have this joy right now
Kristin Nilsen 17:10
right now, just this moment. I'm not. I don't want to have a life of fast fashion. I just want this one moment
Michelle Newman 17:16
right now, especially. And Carolyn, one of the first things that you tuned into, and a lot of the comments, be it on our posts or on others that you were reading, because like I said, for about three weeks we couldn't get away from the posts on and this Krista who commented on our Substack. I think this is Carolyn. You might want to speak to her point, but she says I'm one of the ones that healed my inner child by getting two, since I never was able to get one when I was a preteen. One because of the economy and a dad who worked for GM and GM layoffs in the 80s, and two because of a mom that was is still anti brand name, so wouldn't spend the money. She just says made me so happy to finally have one. This healed my inner child, so something that she was still kind of hanging on to for a while.
Carolyn Cochrane 18:05
Yeah. Well, I think this is so much more than about a sweatshirt, you guys. I really do, and I think that comment lends itself to what I think it's about because we talked about this recently on our preppy episode in the official preppy handbook. This sweatshirt, I think, in this moment, this phenomenon is about belonging. It's all we want. And if you did not have the sweatshirt back when you were young, and you didn't belong to that group, you didn't have the cool clothes that sticks with you. And we are well aware there's somebody amongst the three of us that it does stick with quite heavily, and so I'm always aspirational for those things that everybody else has. So I can see as an adult where all of a sudden now I can belong. And you guys, I think this whole moment, this phenomenon, was again about belonging. I can belong to this group of women that are on this cultural scavenger hunt trying to find this shirt, you find it, you got it. Where okay, well, you get it. We were all together. It wasn't just like I found a cool, you know, esprit shirt on eBay. Here it is, everybody. And people like, oh, that's cute. No, this was so much more than just 1699 piece of fabric. It was us finding each other. It was us remembering this time where we felt joyful. It was the nostalgia. It was recognizing, finding other people that were also remembering this moment. So much like our podcast, it's that oh my gosh, you too, you you love desprite. So it's again, it's much more than just this material piece, this material, and it was like
Kristin Nilsen 19:43
planting our flag. Is like planting our generational flag. Like we are a thing. Gen X is a thing. Right. Let's all come together. And there were there were a variety of snarky things that people wanted to poke poke holes in. And again, I was like, "Fuck off! Let us have this." Let us have this, and I and I promise I'll go back to to you know not doing fast fashion in um in one week, but just let me have this. But one of the snarky things that people commented on were like, haven't we grown out of this already? Are we still you know wearing brand names on our bodies to advertise? And to that I say, number one, no, obviously not. But number two, esprit was different because a spree very wisely designed that logo to be the design, right? The logo was so beautiful; it was like buying a beautiful sweatshirt. It wasn't just buying it because it was a spree, it was the the especially the multicolored one, the the rainbow colored esprit, the e that has no line on has no back on it. Just the design of that logo itself was something you wanted to wear because it was beautiful and cool and exciting. Not because it said anything about you? It wasn't about, especially when it's a $16 sweatshirt, because at this point it's not a signifier of wealth, because it's $16. So you're not making any statement at all except I am Gen X, and this is beautiful, and this is
Carolyn Cochrane 21:19
meaningful to me, and this was a special time, and you're going to wear it, and you're going to see someone else in one. And even if you don't talk to each other, there's going to be this moment of recognition where there's a little, I guess, yeah, and that's what it is, and that's what we want, you guys. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right after safety, is belonging. It is something we will never outgrow, and ways to feel that we can all argue: Is it to have a brand, or everybody wears the same thing? No, but it is those moments of feeling seen and knowing that you belong to something bigger than yourself. And I think this moment of the sweatshirt going viral provided that for so many of us. And it's
Kristin Nilsen 21:56
not-it's not a Birken bag. Like, please understand, it's not the same as getting a Louis Vuitton bag-that's a signifier of wealth, and that's showing people. Sure, it means you belong. It means you belong to a group of. You belong to a country club, right? That's not what this is. It's that we belong to this giant group of people that existed at the same time in history and experienced some of the same things together. And I
Michelle Newman 22:19
think that's the best, like clap back to the people that say, "Aren't we past wearing a brand? Like you just said earlier, Carolyn, this has nothing to do right now. It has nothing to do with that. This Costco craze. There are so few things. Maybe I'll say like zero to one thing that right now in our country, can unite us like something like this silly Costco craze a spree sweatshirt did this summer. Yeah, and I don't care like if it is a little scratchy on the inside. I'm all for it, right? I mean, I'm all for it. So we're gonna end this conversation the way the piece on Substack, the way I ended that, and we're going to leave it at that. Sure, some may say it's just a sweatshirt, but is it? As we navigate the complexities of midlife and menopause, these Costco Esprit sweatshirts are wrapping us up in more than moderately cozy fleece. They're hugging us with their colorful joy. They're a reminder of a time when we didn't wake up in the middle of the night in a pool of our own sweat, when our knees didn't betray us unexpectedly while climbing up our own stairs, when we're smack in the middle of losing our kids to life and our parents to death, when we had departments in our country that helped make sure raspberries didn't give us explosive diarrhea for three weeks, when life was simpler, so join the hunt, go to Costco, get the sweatshirt if you still can. Just make sure to leave one for the sweaty-faced Gen Xer race walking up behind you. Thanks for listening, everybody.
Kristin Nilsen 23:55
The information, opinions, and comments expressed on the Pop Culture Preservation Society podcast belong solely to Carolyn, the crushologist, and Hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time. The PCPS is written, produced, and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional WJM Studios and our beloved Mary Richards. Nanu Nanu, keep on truckin' and may the force be with you.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
Love it here, but keep moving on.