Sam vs Debenhams : round 1
One man’s quest for retail satisfaction continues apace as today he’s taking on high street department store par excellence, Debenhams. Home to the casual gentleman’s semi-stylish without being unconventional fashion range this was the last bastion of shirts that don’t have fucking buttons on the sleeves because modern youth are incapable of rolling their sleeves up and instead require a button to take the hard work out of it.
Dear Debenhams
Over the past couple of years I have developed a small fashion problem that I hold you chaps at least partly responsible for, and while this isn’t my specific reason for contacting you today I feel that as prologue to my particular grievance some background is apt.
As a gentleman well established in his 30s I have, traditionally enough, been making more or less the same fashion purchase decisions, albeit more frequent, that I did when I was a student. This I don’t have a problem with since I looked pretty damn sharp as a student, and on a good day now with my hair standing to attention and the right threads I look pretty sharp still.
Your Mantaray brand has been particularly effective at enabling this continued sharpness, and for that I am most grateful, however it is a sad state of affairs when I regularly find my ensemble to be comprised entirely of Mantaray brand goods. I am not the man from Mantaray by choice, rather it appears that other retailers in the high street are simply not providing the high quality casual attire that really synchs with my personal self image and as such I have been gravitating towards yourselves.
Not that this will be upsetting to you, but there is such a thing as too much Mantaray.
I digress, and really should get to the point, but before doing so I wanted to comment briefly on the Mantaray line so far this year because it’s leaving me cold. It seems the entire gentlemen’s clothing retail industry is obsessed with patterned shirts this “season” whether striped or checked or what have you and frankly I simply don’t care for it. While I have been known to adopt a lumberjack style shirt on occasion that’s usually due to nothing else being available, and right now nothing else is available. Kindly request that your fashionistas get some solid colours into the mix for summer as stripes are invariably hideous.
On the subject of summer, for the last two years I’ve picked up several of your short sleeved Mantaray shirts at the beginning of summer as they’ve very much fitted with my fashion ethos. They’re the right style, size and fabric and I have been for the most part please with my purchase. That said, of the 5 shirts I’ve bought, without exception, not one of them has been able to retain the bottom button. It sounds odd, but I suspect it may be something you’re familiar with.
Now let me make it clear, while I am a gentleman who would benefit from a diet with less pasta in it I am not in possession of a beach-ball shaped midriff, neither am I attempting to withhold excessive man-stomach through the medium of Manataray shirt. No. It just seems for some reason that the Mantaray shirt manufacturing facility, wherever that may be, is incapable of properly securing the final button to each shirt. Maybe they’ve been told to spend 5 seconds less in the manuafacture of each shirt and rather than economise on time everywhere, save it for the end and scrimp on the final button I find it hard to fathom a reason why this button in particular is treated so callously.
Suffice to say, a shirt which loses a button is less of a shirt. If you could see your way clear to ensuring some additional shirt button quality control (and get ride of the stripes) for your upcoming year of sharply dressed casual gentlemen’s attire I would be most grateful.
Many thanks, and please keep up the good work while improving on the work which isn’t quite as good.
Sam
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March 5th, 2010 at 10:53 am
[...] As complaints go, my issue with high street leviathon Debenhams was fairly under arm in nature but that did not lessen the impact of receiving a positive response from their customer service hit squad. That said, I shouldn’t really be surprised given that the respondant in question shares a name with yours truly. If you’ve not yet caught up on the first chapter in this series you can get yourself up with the plot so far here. [...]