Word: beaning
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...poor substitute for belief in one's force of character. An alligator shirt or a madras skirt is the equivalent of a sandwich sign advertising the wearer's shallowness and insecurity. It doesn't take a firm grasp of existential dialectics to see the intimate link between L.L. Bean and Nothingness. Preppy clothes cloak an inner void...
...Basically, we stay in the same place; we stick to basic, practical footwear and apparel," Andrews insists. "All that happens is people get interested from time to time." The Bean family remembers 1976 as an embarrassing year; that's when it won a Coty award from the fashion industry. And then, "in 1979, the beginning of 1980, this preppy thing began to happen...It's just one of those things. For a little while, people come in and touch where we are. We stay in the same place...
Another executive insists that Bean's is "not on the leading edge of fashion--we're not even near it. Sometimes these trends come in and we just get caught." But one gets the feeling that the folks at Bean's aren't too upset; the spurt in sales has allowed them to build an enormous warehouse complex, where 80 per cent of their business is transacted. The main Freeport store--open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year--accounts for the other fifth. "If L. L. could see all this, he'd probably have a warm smile...
Days and years spent in places like those inspired the Bean line, or at least most of it. The parentage still shows--in the lobby of the store, a chalkboard announces upcoming special events. They include "Canoe Films Night," a talk on the woman's ascent of Annapurna, and a slide-illustrated lecture on the "Joy of Fly Fishing...
...upstairs, at 2 a.m., there don't seem to be many fishermen or climbers--two women argue about sizes of Bean's Oxford Cloth Shirtdresses, Bean's Jean Skirts and Bean's Kettle Cloth Skirts. They settle on one and head for the footwear department, stopping in front of a display of the Maine hunting shoe, L. L.'s first inspiration. "They're so cute," one of the women says. "And besides, I need something to go shopping...