‘Lifestyle’ Outlet Malls: Today’s Bell-Bottoms

…Wrentham Village reflects the current fashion among retailers

I also noticed, while strolling along its covered walks, the number of stores that had their doors propped open, no doubt to draw in potential customers, but paying the price by air conditioning the great outdoors on that sweltering hot day. Add to that the competitive pressures to keep the prices of goods as low as possible, even as the expense of shipping products around the globe goes up with the price of oil, and you begin to sense that, behind Wrentham Village’s serene facade, there must lurk some angst about when the revenues of discount retailing will begin to cross paths with the rapidly rising costs of doing business.

For some time now, the relatively low wages of the global workforce have staved off that day of reckoning, but that is also a force that threatens the outlet formula. As I rambled around Wrentham, I overheard several languages and more than one couple remark at how much more they could buy there than in their own country.

Not just outlet centers, but also the entire United States has started to feel, with our dramatically devalued dollar, like an enormous bargain basement for the world. In that light, the uniformity and cleanliness of Wrentham Village may be more about what the foreign image of America is like than what our country has actually become: a much more diverse place with increasing numbers of people depending on low-cost goods in order to hang on financially amid the popping of our economic bubbles.

Hartford Courant