The Thrifty Shop @ Rugged Wearhouse
Parkville's Retail Mecca: Rugged Wearhouse
Saturday I went shopping for clothes at Rugged Wearhouse and scored an entire season's worth of clothes for work and play, from $2 work tees to a slew of $5 tee shirts and even a Sanrio Keroppi Keroppi pajamas outfit (tank top and bottoms). My boyfriend Tom, who was under the weather and depressed from yet another tennis loss (he's a rather world-weary weekend warrior) was instantly perked up when he saw my nifty black Beatles "HELP!" tee and downright jealous when he saw my t-shirt that had the Japanese poster art for King Kong Escapes (Kingu Kongu no gyakushû, aka King Kong Strikes Again) - the 1967 Toho film that featured a robotic mecha-Kong (as shown below)!
Mecha Kong in Toho's "King Kong Escapes" (1967)
(As an added bonus, the Kong shirt had a cartoon on the inside with Kong proclaiming "Machine wash cold with like colors. Do not bleach. Tumble dry low." How cool is that?)
He was so excited by the possibility of scoring a cool shirt like mine that he insisted we both go back for a Rugged Wearhouse shopping spree, arguing that it was "fiscally responsible" to stockpile essentials like clothing during these tough economic times. But, confronted by the preponderance of Phat Farm and Hoodlum Hip-Hop gear on offer on the Men's clothing racks could only whine, "These places are biased towards girls in their cool t-shirts...why don't they make cool stuff for guys?" Apparently he was less than enamoured of shirts with slogans like "Gin and Juice," "Born Playa" and "Playin' the Game 'Till Death Do Us Part." What can I say? He's a Metrosexual.
He had to settle for a handful of $5 tees: a 2-tone Specials shirt, Mad Magazine's 2-tone Spy Vs. Spy, a Japanese McDonald's shirt ("Not as cool as Mecha Kong," he sighed) and the bizarre "Thank You Chuck Norris" t-shirt that had us both scratching our heads. Thank you for what? For guarding our borders a la that quip from Mike Huckabee?
All in all, a very satisfying shopping day. I got eight shirts, a pair of pajama pants and two pajama tops for $52 bucks and Tom scored four tees and a hoody sweatshirt for $26. With the closing of Steve and Barry's, Rugged Wearhouse has filled the void of cheap chic clothing. Wear it and declare it!
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