Easton Shopping Center- Then and Now

I mentioned on Friday that Alyssa and I went to Easton Shopping Center when she was finished with her first semester of classes/ exams at Ohio State. She asked if we could go to Easton, also in Columbus, on our way out of town, to do some shopping. Easton is a large shopping complex with some stores inside an enclosed area (that is, a mall) but most of the stores and restaurants outside- open air style. Easton is LARGE with over 200 stores and restaurants in it. Alyssa had a few specific stores in mind that she wanted to shop at. These are stores that are not in our area or even the larger Cincinnati metropolitan area that is closer to us than Columbus is.

I arrived in Columbus at 10:00 am per Alyssa's instructions (she had a specific time she had to be out of the dorms by), we got everything in the car that she was bringing home for break and then we drove for several miles to get to Easton. It was nice that we got there just a little after it opened. Even though it was the middle of the week, I guess because it's the Christmas season, the place had already started to get crowded. We were able to find a parking spot pretty easily; by the time we left, cars were circling the lot we were in to nab a spot.

We first stopped at Urban Outfitters. (There is an UO in the Cincinnati but it's not at the usual places we shop when we go there). Alyssa tried on a pair of jeans that she liked but I encouraged her to wait and see if she found another pair at a more reasonable price at other stores we were going to. The pair she tried on were close to $80. Alyssa readily agreed because she had the lead on a potential "hack" to find cheaper jeans.

The hack pertained to Abercrombie & Fitch Kids and as shopping luck would have it, the Abercrombie Kids store was close to Urban Outfitters so we went to Abercrombie Kids next. The hack is that the largest size girls clothes fit smaller size adults. (This is something not new to me- I often look for kids' sweatshirts when we're on vacay and I want a hoodie with the town name on it- XL kids' tops generally fit me fine and the price for kids clothes is usually a decent bit cheaper so it makes sense (to me) to buy a kid sized hoodie!)

Apparently the hack as it was proclaimed on TikTok is that the largest girls sized jeans are big enough to fit slender adults. And as I mentioned with the kids sweatshirts being cheaper in price, the TikTokers extolled the cheaper prices of the kids jeans and so, the social media posts went, if you were a fairly petite, slender gal (tall slender adults would be out kid jeans luck!), you could nab a pair of Abercrombie (albiet kids'...) jeans for way less than a pair of jeans at many stores. It was interesting that half of the jeans she tried on fit her perfectly in length and about half were just too short on her to be wearable. (They were all the same size- the largest child size.) We bought three pairs of jeans for her.

(As an aside, Alyssa has saved a decent bit of money through her job- it was/is (she plans to return to it this summer) a really good job. On her own, she started buying some of her clothes. I don't mind buying her clothes- she's our dependent after all- but I appreciate how she has taken the initiative to buy a lot of her own clothes. It shows responsibility as well as maturity and she's learning about budgeting and finding deals while still enjoying the safety of having all of her needs being met by us.)

Then we went to the Brandy Melville store. This is the store that Alyssa was most excited about going to in person. There is a store near us near Cincy called PacSun that sells some Brandy Melville wares. She likes the Brandy Melville clothes quite a bit- they are mostly basics, sort of subdued florals, pretty, feminine but not over the top anything if that makes sense. 

At the Brandy Melville store- When I saw this John Galt sign, I thought to myself that the name sounded like a character from an Ayn Rand book. I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged when I was college age (I think- I may have been in high school) so it's been a while. Anyway, I looked it up and yes, the founder of BM is a fan of Rand's so that's where the sign comes from!

Brandy Melville is unique and not without controversy. Its clothes do not come in marked sizes! As in, everything for sale is one size. Their tag line (pardon the pun) used to be one size fits all which was changed to one size fits most. (It doesn't take an astute observer to note the near impossibility that a piece of clothing will fit both a very large person and a very small person!) The "charge" if you will against BM is that the one size is geared towards smaller sized young women; bigger gals can't fit into the clothes. Tik Tok is replete with women telling tales of their "trauma" (yes, they use that word!) of trying to fit into Brandy Melville clothes and not being able to. So, the brand is charged with being thin elitist. The founder is also claimed to be kinda creepy- apparently there's an HBO documentary hit piece out against the store. I was telling Alyssa all of this and she was like, I just like how the clothes look and most of them fit me well. And I said, fair play to you- I just wanted to let you know what I read about it...

I don't care for Ohio State athletics at all and so I have not purchased any OSU merch for myself. The only thing that I would consider buying is an OSU Mom shirt, honestly. But finding a shirt like that has been low on my priority list. So, when I saw at Brady Melville a hoodie that just says Columbus on it, I decided to buy it. It's an ode to the city, not the university. It was also, I am not going to say cheap, but much cheaper than official NCAA licensed products (many OSU sweatshirts for sale at campus bookstores cost north of $70).

We went to the Lululemon store- we have one only about a half hour away from us but it's a small one. We figured this one would be a big store and it was. I found one item for me and Alyssa found a couple of things.

The mall portion of Easton was decorated festively...

...and we saw several tall lighted trees outside.

We went to a few other stores but those were the highlights! I'm glad it worked out for Alyssa to get to shop at some of her favorite stores. 

For me, it's going to take several visits to Easton to stop associating it with some of the girls' best memories of their childhood- shopping at the Columbus America Girl doll store (at Easton) and then playing for hours with their dolls. The girls had a fairly brief but intense time when they were super into their American Girl dolls. That the Columbus American Girl Doll store opened when they were in the middle of their love of all things American Girl made this epoch in their life all the more special to look back on. That the Easton American Girl doll store CLOSED earlier this year seems symbolic somehow- though the girls had (obviously!) been not playing with their dolls for quite some time, the timing of the closing of the store coincided almost exactly with Alyssa turning eighteen earlier this year. 

Let's take a look back to the year 2012.

My friend Kristen and I took our daughters to the American Girl doll store in Chicago in June. So much fun and at the time the closest American Girl doll store to us as the Columbus one wasn't open yet. 

The Embassy Suites had an American Girl doll package that was a no brainer- for $20 or so more per night, the girls got snacks and a bed for their American Girl doll. 

The next morning- going to the store on Michigan Avenue!

New dolls!

At the time that we went to the AG store in Chicago, the American Girl doll store in Columbus was not open. However, in September  2012, we found out that an American Girl doll store was going to open in Columbus at Easton in the summer of 2013.  

In the spring of 2013, Abby and Giovanna (Kristen's daughter) had a dance competition in Columbus near Easton so we went to Easton to shop and to take a picture where the Columbus AG doll store would be opening in just a few months!

This was Abby at the dance competition that we were in at Columbus- I had the lady who made Abby's solo costume make a matching costume for her American Girl doll. That's how we rolled in our American Girl doll era :).

In late June of 2013, the American Girl doll store opened at Easton- we were there for it, literally and figuratively!

We spent the night near Easton the evening before to get in line early since massive crowds were expected. I left our hotel a little after 6:00 am to get in line at the store to get tickets which would give us a time to come back when we could get into the store and shop. 

The girls had an amazing time even though it was crowded (the ticketing method ensured that the place wasn't mobbed but it was still crazy busy). They were interviewed and made it on TV! 

Later that summer, we returned to the Columbus American Girl doll store with my sister and her girls.

That fall, on Abby's birthday, I took her out of school as a surprise to do some one on one shopping at the American Girl doll store at Easton.

A couple of years later, I took Alyssa on her own solo shopping trip to Easton.

There was a candy store located near the store- I think this is out of business, too. It was such a fun place to visit.

See how I associate Easton with American Girl doll??

And now the store is closed. Awww. I'm not sure why interest has lagged for girls wanting American Girl dolls. They're expensive but they have always been. Alyssa said she's seen on social media that there's a trend where pre pubescent girls are super into skin care now? Ok, but that shouldn't necessarily preclude liking AG dolls as well. I mean, one can't spend hours on skincare, right? It seems like they'd still have time to play? My girls were in time consuming activities- competition dance for Abby, club soccer for Alyssa and they both did gymnastics once a week. They still had plenty of downtime and they spent hours playing with their dolls. I don't know but I am glad that my girls snuck in, apparently by the hair of their chinny, chinny chin, before girls their age playing with American Girl dolls lost its appeal. I know the pictures here just depict the shopping part of the AG experience for us. Of much greater significance to the girls in their childhood were the hours and hours of play with their dolls. 

The building with the round top is the site of the American Girl doll store that was... 

Linking up with Joanne for Talking about it Tuesday.