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How to make men feel at home while shopping

September 7, 2009

San Francisco Chronicle fashion correspondent Aaron Britt recently went on a walking tour of S.F. men's retail with Bertrand Pellegrin, author of "Branding the Man: Why Men are the Next Frontier in Fashion Retail."

Pellegrin argues that men's retail needs to be a fundamentally different experience from any other type of store, since men approach their experiences with specific desires and expectations in mind.

He argues that sports bars allow men a highly accessible sense of community and a chance to be small-time experts ("Can you believe Mauer is hitting .372 and slugging .622?"), strip clubs permit the camaraderie and competition of faux sexual pursuits, and gyms offer us a defined set of activities, a male-centered environment, and tacitly approve of the kind of vanity that plenty of men would find overly prissy in a clothing store.