I originally took this picture just for a look at the Outdoor Life Neighborhood sign, but I seem to have completely missed the fake storefront on the left! At least in pictures, it's a surprisingly convincing effect, but the perspective is off just enough to massively confuse my brain if I look at it more closely. This mall has (unofficial) Street View coverage, and it appears that as of 2018, there were quite a few fake storefronts like this; thankfully (and despite the pandemic), it appears that business has picked up and most of them have since been replaced by real stores.
Ha, that's certainly a more convincing fake mall storefront than the ones used by the Mall of the Mainland, a now-dead mall in the Houston area that never really took off and had a large number of vacancies even when it was new (though it has kind of come back from the dead in a way...it's a near miracle!): https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2014/02/mall-of-mainland-march-20-1991-january.html
ReplyDeleteOutdoor Life was (maybe still is, we don't have any Sears left anywhere remotely near here like you do) a store brand used by Sears during the Lampert years. I reckon it was used under license from the Outdoor Life magazine. I suppose the term 'Outdoor Life' is generic enough that the magazine won't complain about it being used here. Certainly Sears is in no position to complain these days...especially in Canada where Sears has been officially dead for quite some time now.
Now, for things I wish were fake, check out this new exterior remodel of a Kroger store here in the Houston area! Yikes! Link: https://goo.gl/maps/33YnAJhNxT1AMxs5A
Here's how that store looked before: https://goo.gl/maps/u2rAY3pnC2xWqG4S6
It's not that the Kroger was some great looker before, but that remodel is pretty bad. It's the Artisan of exterior remodels!
Haha, yeah, I think you've shown me those cartoony fake facades before! In some ways, I prefer when they don't really try to be realistic -- that's the whole "uncanny valley" concept, where things that are really trying to be realistic but aren't quite there are particularly off-putting.
DeleteI don't think I've seen any outdoor products in Sears in recent years, let alone ones from an actual Sears-owned brand! I'm not sure if Sears has any brands of their own left these days, since they sold off their more successful ones a few years back.
Yikes, that's pretty bad! The new Kroger logo (particularly with the cart thing) looks bad everywhere it shows up, painted brick is an awful trend, and that color scheme is bad... I literally have nothing positive to say about that store!