Here we have the Monocle Shop on College St. on the Saturday of its opening. Walking smartly into the shop are two of its enforcers (actually enforceuses), one British, the other Canadian.
These two had followed me out of the store to demand I hand back the perfect-bound Winkreative brochure I had picked up from a pile of such brochures in the office area behind, and clearly demarcated from, the store. We then had quite a discussion about why I was not allowed to take home a brochure. The enforcers alleged that one had to pay for it. But it was a brochure, with no barcode or price tag. One does not sell corporate brochures.
I fact-checked their asses by asking the Monocle online store and Winkreative exactly where I could buy such a brochure and for how much. Whaddya know: No response.
Monocle, a cripplingly dull magazine with a smashing business plan that needs to be duplicated wholesale, always wants you to know you aren’t part of the family. They will fly a woman across the ocean and task her with tailing you outside a store on a winter’s day to tell you that to your face. I contend this is materially worse than getting endlessly strung along for an interview with and by Tyler Brûlé.
What else was I doing at the Shop that day? Loathing the grasping, arriviste young-design-professional clientele visibly currying favour with the boss; trying to get a good photograph of Brûlé’s excellent shoes; and enduring his airy rebuff when I told him his video podcasts required captioning.