Middle School Girls Unlock a Room of Their Own, in Miniature
15th October 2011
At middle schools across the country, metal lockers that were long considered decorated if they had photos of friends or the teen heartthrob of the moment — Shaun Cassidy years ago, Justin Bieber today — have suddenly become the latest frontier in nesting.
Peek inside, and find lockers outfitted with miniature furry carpets, motion-sensor-equipped lamps that glow when the door opens, mirrors, decorative flowers, and magnetic wallpaper in floral and leopard-print patterns.
It is hard to say whether retailers have merely capitalized on or actually created demand among girls for the accessories. Either way, they are being embraced from Little Rock, Ark., where an owner of an upscale children’s boutique, the Toggery, said the demand for locker chandeliers had led to “snatching and grabbing” in the store’s normally genteel aisles, to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where shoppers at Lester’s who failed to pounce quickly enough found themselves picking over the dregs before the school year even started.
These are the kids who, in ten or twenty years, will wind up camping out with signs in a park in the City, wondering how their lives went so horribly wrong.