There was a time when I had a coat for every season and all four came from Eddie Bauer. Then they decided all they wanted to do was sell over-priced preppy clothing. Now I never shop at Eddie Bauer and neither does hardly anyone else.
Abercrombie and Fitch started out as an expedition outfitters store. Amelia Earhart and Teddy Roosevelt shopped there. When it was repositioned in the 1990s, it became very successful selling to the 18-23 affluent "slacker upper class." A lot of companies followed their corporate plan of trashing $15 caps and selling them for $60. Eddie Bauer followed the same pattern. This market is suffering heavily now. Malls are having problems because they primarily sell stuff nobody really needs. That works fine in great economic times, but they were suffering even before this last downturn. Their primary market was people with both lots of money and lots of spare time. The new strip malls have bigger stores, but you can get in and out much more quickly. The cost of rental is cheaper, because there's no interior common space to cool, heat, maintain and decorate. The malls also catered heavily to chain stores, and were quite dictatorial about what you could sell, decorations, store hours, etc.
Ha! Around here there is a season where we don't need any kind of a jacket. Summer is hot enough so that only a few even bother with rain jackets. But now with concealed carry so common some folks use an unbuttoned cotton shirt over a T to conceal the hardware on the hip. Makes trips to the mall safer!