The year was 1999, my wife and I are walking through the Avenues mall in Jacksonville. We walk by a storefront that had the look of an old cottage. We noticed some cool looking paintings in the store window so being new homeowners and having a desire to decorate our walls, we decided to walk in and take a look. Upon entering the store one of the sales associates nabs us and leads us over to the main display wall. The salesperson messes with an adjustable dimmer light shining down on what turns out to be an overpriced lithograph someone had painted various highlights. It turns out it wasn't even Thomas Kinkade who had done the highlights but some desperate artist he supposedly commissioned to do it for him. My wife and I were buying the sales presentation until they mentioned the price. I don't remember how much it was but being as compulsive as my wife and I were 11 years ago with a pocket full of credit cards. It had to be really expensive because we did a 180 and walked out of the store. Over the next 3 years, Kinkade paintings took off like a California wildfire. Every where you turned it was Thomas Kinkade crap: key chains, candles, plates, screen savers, ect, ect, ect... I am soooo glad Dawn and I didn't buy one of the lithographs that day. I got so sick of seeing his cheesy paintings plastered over everything. You couldn't step 3 feet into a Walgreens without catching an eye shot of some tacky trinket with a house and lamp scene plastered across it waiting for some sucker to purchase.
Having said all that, Ed Hardy... It's getting old really quick. It was neat about a year ago. Now just glancing through any Sunday paper ad section your guaranteed to find 100 items with Ed Hardy plastered across them. Even in some of the most obscure stores you will find something at least one item with a snake and tiger and the letter "Ed Hardy": winter boots, laptops, perfume, hair dryers, and even Smart cars. In addition they have the audacity to markup the merchandise as if it were unique. At this point Mr Hardy is about as unique as Mr. Kinkade. I think the official breaking point for me was about 6 months ago I went to the car wash and I purchased a Ed Hardy air freshener to hang from my rear view mirror. I give this stuff another year and it's history and man will I be glad!
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