Philadelphia Weekly

Storing up for fall: Behold the new H&M on Walnut (above) and the other one on grody, old Chestnut.

There's an ad that keeps running on SportsCenter for one of those online directory websites. In the ad David Carradine pretty much reprises his voice and character from Kill Bill: Vol. 2, and plugs the site to a puzzled student, who asks him if he knows the site allows him to purchase, well, material goods.

"After all, it is a material world," he says. "Let's say pizza makes you happy."

I eat a lot of pizza. But if there's anything that rivals my love of pizza, it's my love of clothes shopping.

I love to shop. I'm the only person I know--besides my mom--whose closet doors bulge at the hinges. But I don't need to spend all that much money. I enjoy it even if I'm just pretending to shop.

While imaginary shopping may not involve any actual purchasing, the correct store is key to maximizing potential for creating my own Zenlike shopping state.

I used to stick to men's clothing stores only, lest I accidentally purchase clothing created for the opposite gender. (This has never actually happened to me--as far as I know--but it's one of my worst fears. I'm not quite sure why, as it seems pretty unlikely, and I've certainly embarrassed myself in worse, more public ways.)

But now that I'm paying more for rent, more for beer and more for (of course) pizza, I have to stick to the cheaper stores. Even though I try to imaginary shop as much as possible, on the off chance I actually do purchase something, I want to be able to afford it.

Fortunately, in the past few years, cheap, quasi-hip fashion chains have popped up in Center City. American Apparel, which you might see on the back of this paper every week, is of course a big hit. But I've grown fond of H&M too, which opened a store at 16th and Chestnut streets in 2002 and recently opened another branch at 1725 Walnut St.

I say "branch" because the only stores that are usually that close together are banks--not hip cheap Swedish clothiers.

Not so fast, says company spokesperson Lisa Sandberg. "Having two city stores close by is natural for H&M," she writes via email.

Oh?

"Most major European cities have several H&M stores in their city center. Here in the U.S. we have seven stores in Manhattan, two in downtown San Francisco, two in Boston, two in Chicago and two in Washington, D.C. So Philly is not alone with multiple H&Ms!"

Ah, so that explains it: It's all part of the Philadelphia renaissance.

H&M on Chestnut Street

And at least in the men's section, the Walnut Street store--which shares a block with such upscale locales as Zara, Burberry and the new Steve Madden right next door--it seems to have a nicer, larger selection of clothes. Even the music sounds hipper in the Walnut Street store.

The H&M on Chestnut is surrounded mainly by drug and shoe stores, and--even with the recent remodeling--it's more cramped than the new store. It also's right next to discount department store Loehmann's, which has its meager men's section in the basement, where the porn usually is, as a colleague observed.

Whether this is a placebo effect or if the Walnut Street store really is nicer remains to be seen, but it seems that in commercial real estate, the old axiom holds true: location, location, location.

But hey, let's say it makes you happy. Then, as David Carradine might note, it is after all a material world.