Burlington Coat Factory: Style Says It For You

Examining the vibes of Burlington Coat Factory.

Today we’re looking at an advertisement from Burlington Coat Factory that espouses the virtues of style. You can thank — or blame, depending on whether or not you like this post — the lovely and talented Alnycea Blackwell for suggesting it.

The ad begins with a man confidently, maybe even triumphantly, declaring that people like his vibes. 

I’m not entirely sure what that means or how he came to such a conclusion. Such a declaration was certainly shocking to the man engaged in cleaning his car; note his confused reaction to the announcement. Perhaps the Vibe-master — who I will refer to as such because of his self-identified mastery of all things vibe related — is just a narcissist.  

That leads us to ad’s second act. It is here the plot thickens, and we can truly begin to appreciate the potentially dangerous game Burlington Coat Factory has invited us to play, where the stakes are no less than the very heart and soul of American society.

What does it mean to go and get?

What exactly do you go and get, Go-getter? Are you saying you go and get mass produced clothing in order to make yourself feel unique — and then you bring it back? Are you comparing yourself to a dog playing fetch? Or are you perhaps referring to the cyclic nature of life, in that you always go out to get yet always return to where you once were? Hell is repetition, they say.   

Perhaps this is a commentary on thoughtless ambition and the insatiable lust for “success.” You leave behind everything else in your life until eventually you return with your prize — the prize you spent so long dreaming of and scheming for — only to find that you were wrong in thinking it would bring happiness. You let your ambition become not the means to an end, but the end itself. Now you have your warm coat, but it does little to alleviate the deathly chill that holds sway over your soul.  

The ad further reinforces this interpretation by injecting the ultimate irony: Go-getter, you sought out your heavy coat, but now it doesn’t look that cold out. It was all for nothing. All that time spent is gone. Wasted.

You are truly alone now, sitting on a bench crying out to an uncaring and alienated world to justify your actions. I wonder whom you are truly trying to convince, Go-getter; the world or yourself? You have all you ever wanted, but it brings you no joy. You feel uncomfortably warm now, in fact.

Putting out such a message required incredible courage from Burlington Coat Factory. Imagine it from their perspective: You are sickened by the consumer and status driven culture that supports you, yet speaking out to change it could destroy your very foundation. Would you have the moral courage and selflessness required to do what you felt was right for society, regardless of personal and professional cost?  

Nah, I’m just messing with you.

Burlington Coat Factory doesn’t care about you, society, or anything that isn’t money.

“I buy mass produced clothing because a company tells me it will make me unique,” is what Go-getter is really saying.

Style, not substance.

In the final act the entire ad comes together, and the meaning becomes apparent. We are bluntly told that style is all that matters. Style is everything and as such there is no room for substance.

Perhaps Vibe-master himself is meant to represent Burlington Coat Factory, with his smug and self-assured narcissism. Of course everyone loves and accepts his vibes, and here we can equate “vibes” with “values.”  We, the public, are obviously meant to play the role of the misguided Go-getter, one who doesn’t question her vibe loyalties and simply goes out and gets like she is supposed to.

But perhaps Burlington Coat Factory underestimated us.

I feel more kinship with the menial worker, the man who stopped what he was doing at Vibe-master’s boast and began to turn — perhaps to say that whether or not he liked the vibes was his choice, not Vibe-master’s — when he was cut off and replaced with Go-getter.

Every individual is free to choose their own vibes to like, whether you like it or not, Burlington Coat Factory.

And that’s why I probably won’t buy your product — unless I’m really cold and happen to be right next to one of your stores or something.