RTCrawford’s Weblog

Just got back from a week spent in Charleston, which the NY Times profiled this week as an upper-scale destination at a reasonable price. More than 20 years ago, my wife and I took our honeymoon there because we were dirt poor — I was an undergrad in my senior year and she was a data entry person for an off-shoot of NASA, believe it or not, in Athens, Georgia — home of the University of Georgia Bull Dogs … Go Dogs, Sick ‘em … Woof, Woof. But I digress.

Charleston was interesting because the NY Times got it right. We took bicycle “rick shaws” from the French Quarter back and forth to the Marion Francis Hotel (named for the “Swamp Fox” of Civil War fame, I believe). There were a number of interesting items worth mentioning.

First, the well off were present in abundance, and they were spending on the excellent food and shopping that resides in Charleston. Is this different than elsewhere? Surely, but it seems evident that Christ’s lamentation that there will always be the poor among us works for the wealthy, as well.

Second, the housing market in Charleston is going gang busters … downtown, at least. Want a bargain? Charleston is not the place to find it.

Third, we went into a number of a Art stores — paintings, sculptures, etc. Believe it or not, I am a trained artist — Art Students League of New York City –, and I found an interesting assortment of art … from the well-known to the wanna-be’s. The most popular style of painting is academic realism (the stuff I studied). Abstract expressionism is not selling, but the “rich” looking art is doing well, from landscapes to still-lifes. The only portion of traditional art not doing well is figure life painting — i.e., classical nudes. Talking with the proprietors, they indicated that smaller pieces are doing poorly but the more expensive big stuff is selling well. This is different than expected — can’t stick a small piece in the luggage for the trip home. In other words, the division between upper and lower class is expanding during this recession.

Interestingly, the Abercrombie store on King Street was lightly attended, while the upper-end and lower-end stores were booming. My wife told me a story about her aunt from decades ago. She (the aunt) was married to an upper-scale physician in NYC before her divorce. Lived the upper-scale life, etc. After the divorce, her lifestyle changed dramatically. When Amy and her mother visited (Amy was in her teens at the time), her aunt went on and on about the great retail find she had discovered — JC Penney’s. This was back in the 1970s, but the bigger point is that recessions shift spending habits in interesting ways.

In other words, Abercrombie may take a hit, as will all the other retailers, but the eventual winners may not be at the extremes — upper or lower — but in the middle. Those with money make choices about discretionary income, deciding what is important and what is not. As my Aunt-in-Law suggests, a good meal or an excellent piece of art while on vacation may not be negotiable but nice clothing at a discount (without the named logo) represents a selection trade off, where mid-priced quality is sustained, and where the middle income will likely return when the economy rebounds.

That, at least, was my impression from an interesting week spent in an unexpected market.

PS. Heat and humidity are defined as “Charleston” — a port town, where the confluence of two rivers occurs. All that water and all that heat are enough to draw sweat from the back of your knees. The South did not rise (again, or ever) until the advent of air conditioning.