Pots and pans on Oak Street? It may sound a little bourgeois for Chicago’s toniest shopping boulevard, renowned for its pricey international fashion offerings.
But the contrast doesn’t seem incongruous to Zepter International, a European cookware company founded 10 years ago in Switzerland. Its ultra-modern store at 50 E. Oak St. is its first U.S. location, although Zepter operates in 41 countries worldwide, including Russia, Poland and Canada.
“We really wanted to be associated with a city known for its restaurants and food,” explained David E. Miller, marketing director of Zepter’s U.S. operations, about choosing Chicago. And Oak Street’s international ambience should attract the sort of shoppers Zepter is targeting with its clean-lined, Italian-made cookware, he adds.
Move over copper. Zepter’s pots, made of heavy-gauge, surgical stainless steel, are intended to appeal to health nuts and dieters because they allow cooking without water or oils. The lid and pot form a seal when heated, creating a convection type of cooking with the food’s own moisture.
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Each pot has its own thermostat on top, so cooks can tell what’s going on inside without taking the lid off. And in the Chinese tradition of cooking, Zepter’s pots stack on top of each other on the stove, so meat, potatoes and veggies can cook at the same time, conserving energy.
Prices range from $45 for a martini shaker, which promises no healthful benefits, to $209 for a six-quart pot, in the same ballpark with other professional cookware lines. A tiered stack of three pots will run you about $500.
Zepter’s pots sell themselves, said Miller, who says he is considering letting customers take them home for a one-week test drive. Considering Oak Street’s sky-high rents, Zepter’s pots better get cooking.
Back-to-school bummer: Remember when parents took their kids shopping in August to array them with new clothes and shoes for the coming school year? Those days are over, most retailers acknowledge. Loafers were long ago replaced by Nikes, and plaid skirts were supplanted by blue jeans.
But the news is even worse than that. Parents in the north-central region of the country, including Chicago, aren’t planning to spend more on jeans and gym shoes than they did last year, according to American Express, which surveyed 1,000 parents and students nationwide.
In 1996, parents here spent an average of $262 on back-to-school clothing. This year, they’ll spend $263, one whole dollar more. An unexpected factor holding down spending: Kids now prefer to see what others are wearing to school before making purchases.
Maybe retailers should consider fashion shows at the local junior high.
Getting bounced: Despite a healthy economy, the job news for retail employees continues to be grim. Through July 17, some 28,947 job cuts were announced in the retail sector nationwide, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement firm.
If that pace continues, 1997’s announced job losses would surpass handily 1996’s total of 42,025. In the past four years, retailers have said they were cutting almost 200,000 job, with the high water mark coming in 1993 when they said they were slashing 82,514 jobs.
And retail executives wonder why they can’t get good help anymore.
Charity card: The Spiegel Catalog and National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations are issuing a co-branded Mastercard sporting the pink ribbon that has become associated with the primary cause of cancer death among women.
Cardholders will earn a 5 percent rebate on each Spiegel purchase and a 1 percent rebate on other purchases. They can then choose to use their rebates for Spiegel merchandise or donate their non-tax-deductible rebates to breast cancer research. The alliance’s toll-free number will be printed on the back of the card for cardholders with questions about breast cancer.