Fall into the Gap

September 2, 2009 - 10:16 AM by Jessica · 2 Comments
Filed under: Business, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness

The question that people were asking each other last week in Jerusalem was whether a navy blue Gap shopping bag had appeared on their front door handle. I hadn’t, but as a frequent clothing buyer, I had received a NIS 50 coupon for the Gap from Isracard, my credit card company. Which, if you ask me, is better than an empty shopping bag.

So yes, there was some keen curiousity about the opening of the Gap in Jerusalem’s Mamilla shopping mall, given that this popular clothing retailer — part of the Old Navy/Banana Republic group — was finally coming to Israel and to Jerusalem, no less. Would the clothing cost the same as it does in the States, wondered the locals. Did they open in Jerusalem because rent is cheaper than it is in Tel Aviv? Would Israelis actually buy at the Jerusalem Gap, paying the probably higher prices? Would there be the end-of-season sale racks that there are in the States, where you can snatch up pieces for $6.99?

Probably not, assumed the Anglo Saxons, who swore never to be an Israeli ‘frier’ and buy from the Jerusalem Gap.

Reports began filtering back following the August 24 opening. The store was packed, one source told me, and it was only tourists doing the buying. Someone else said that the usual $65 jeans cost some NIS 300, which comes to some $80 in shekel terms.

So I had to head there myself to check out how the Gap was faring. On a sunny Tuesday morning, just one week after the grand opening, the store was full on both the Baby Gap and Adult Gap sides. People were walking out with more than one bag, and they looked Israeli to me, which wasn’t surprising. As for prices, they were about $15 higher, on average, than what you would pay at the Gap in the U.S. Of course, some of the fall items are already on sale on-line, whereas there were no sales at the Jerusalem store. Not yet, one salesperson told me, promising that we would be seeing some of the fabulous Gap sales in the holy city.

In the meantime, it was fun to peruse the familiar-looking racks and shelves. The jeans styles are translated into Hebrew, so that you can figure out if Sexy Boot jeans are for you, or whether the Little Pocket T is your perfect tee-shirt. I restrained myself, even with my NIS 50 coupon, cuz I’d still rather rely on online shopping through one of my frequent U.S. travelers.

Now when H&M reaches Malcha, that may be a different kind of challenge.

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Tags: H&M, Mamilla, The Gap

Mamilla architecture

July 1, 2008 - 9:38 PM by Jessica · 4 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture

The best underground parking lot in Jerusalem, possibly the entire country, is underneath the Mamilla pedestrian mall, part of the $400 million complex that was in dispute for many years, but is finally near completion. Large, spacious and with smooth cement floors that may very well be cleaner than those in my own home, I’m thinking of moving in there.

But despite the luxuriousness of the parking lot, that probably isn’t the most striking architectural feature of the complex, which features several dozen boutiques, several cafes and other businesses in the pedestrian-only shopping district along Rehov Mamilla. The stores are also fine, natch, a fairly interesting combo of local and foreign shops that offer some decent options for Malcha Mall-weary Jerusalemites.

What is worth checking out are some of the mall’s reassembled buildings from the turn of the century. The Stern House, for example, was where Theodor Herzl slept when he visited Jerusalem in 1898, and now houses the Mamilla Steimatzky bookstore and an outdoor cafe. What’s cool is that in order to move and reassemble the building, each stone of the facade was carefully numbered in order to reassemble it in its new location and with more modern construction behind the walls. Given that the original structures themselves were demolished, preservationists poo-poo the practice as ‘facadism.’

But, still, it offers the Mamilla project a more layered, architecturally interesting look to have preserved buildings on site, and if the Stern House hosted Herzl, why not Steimatzky?

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