Kmart was the first word I ever learned to read. It was also my first job.
When I walked into HR for my interview, I was smiling so big she said, “You’re hired. Anybody with a smile that pretty is an easy hire!”
So Martha Stewart talking about Kmart’s towels has me in my feelings.
Photo: Greg Mathieson/MAI via Getty Images, via MarthaStewart.com.
In a 2013 Vanity Fair story, she said mass-market retailers resisted light-colored towels because they assumed poorer customers did laundry less often. Then her white towels became the bestsellers, followed by pale yellow. Imagine that. People wanted pretty things when somebody actually offered them.
Kmart was my first job. I still miss it.
To this day, it was the best job I’ve ever had. I loved that place more than anything, and I don’t think another store has ever filled that particular hole in my heart.
I’ve even written about it before, in my post about the jobs I had before I was a writer. My love for that place goes way back.
I LOVED the Martha Stewart Everyday collection. There was something about Martha being at Kmart that just made sense to me. Beautiful things belonged there. The people shopping there deserved to have a home they were excited about, too.
Give us the pretty towels.
Having less money does not mean you somehow stop wanting things to be nice.
Dude. I am of the people, for the people. Give us the pretty towels.
I know Martha’s name has been on plenty of things since then, but it has never felt quite the same to me. Maybe some of that is because I loved Kmart so much. I’ll own that.
But I miss that version of it. Martha at Kmart felt like something lovely was within reach.
I wish we’d gotten to keep it.
