Stores bursting
to help you
Party 2000
From clocks for those
By Donica Croot
anticipating to time-sealed
champagne for the celebrating,
MM mania is selling
Star-BulletinMillennium. 01-01-00. Year 2000. No matter how you spell it, the merchandise is appearing around us.
From clocks and watches to specially-packaged foods, to jewelry and crystal, to toys and clothing, stores have been stocking items since last Christmas, with varying degrees of customer interest. But you can bet your countdown clock that things will soon pick up.
Neiman Marcus, for one, will be hosting several events to publicize millennium dressing and merchandise, said Pauline Worsham, public relations manager."We will, as a company, have a very major focus on millennium throughout the store," she said. More Year 2000 merchandise will be arriving in fall, adding to current store items like jeweled Faberge eggs and Waterford crystal glasses.
After making some shopping runs around town - someone's got to do it - here are just some of the nifty products we found out there.
Clocks
If you can't wait one more day to start celebrating, or at least counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds, countdown clocks are the most obvious way to get into the Year 2000 spirit. They were widely available last Christmas but since have been scarce. The clocks show time ticking toward midnight on Jan. 1, sometimes to the hundredth of a second.
DFS Galleria in Waikiki is selling a transparent, programmable digital hourglass that plays tunes to remind one of holidays and important occasions.Clocks are also available at The Museum Company, the Warner Brothers Store, Dapy and Sears.
Countdown watches that can be reset to count down any occasion are being sold at The Museum Company. And millennium-themed watches, including a Swatch collectible that comes in a space-style case, are available at World of Time in Aloha Tower Marketplace.
If watches are too cliche, accessorize for the new year with 14K gold and cubic zirconium "2000" earrings and pendants from Fortuna at Pearlridge Center. Accessories and jewelry also can be found at JC Penney.
Assortment of goodies
DFS Galleria in Waikiki has on display one of the best product selections, from collared shirts to Hawaii Year 2000 Countdown coffee in three flavors - "French Futura," "21st Century Blend" and "Taste of Tomorrow."The store boasts a large range of T-shirts, from the upbeat ("Planet Earth 2000 A.D. and still spinning"), to the sarcastic ("The 2000th Year Wha' Dif... Hawaii, No gas, No cars, No banks, No traffic, No electric, No airplanes, No nine to five, No worries! Just like the Ol' Days").
Rainbow-colored swizzle sticks bearing 01-01-00 handles are stacked near snow globes, with 0s and 1s drifting through water around an exploded plastic computer and Mystical Magical Balls, glass orbs atop cardboard stands that read 01-01-00 in gold lettering.Lino Fritz, general manager of DFS Galleria, said the merchandise, available since the start of the year, has been selling well, predominantly to Japanese visitors. The most popular items have been food and candy, packaged in Year 2000 designs produced by DFS main offices, Fritz said. Other popular items are T-shirts, pen sets, and Bordeaux wine and champagne sealed with labels advising not to open until 2000.
Catering to upscale tastes, Neiman Marcus offers a $500 blue-and-gold Year 2000 Faberge Imperial Egg: Open the egg and find a small gold globe. Open the globe and an Austrian crystal 2000 pin gleams back from velvet.It also sells a Millennium Love Doves (Peace) Faberge Imperial Egg for $950.
Merchandise arriving in late September or early October will include rhinestone shoes; special releases of cosmetics and fragrances; and designer clothing, such as a silver tie with actual silver threads, said public relations manager Worsham.
Neiman Marcus also carries a series of Waterford "Toast to the Millennium" glasses in five themes -- happiness, love, health, prosperity and peace -- for $115 a pair.At Tiffany & Co., champagne flutes with frosted numerals proclaiming the year 2000 sell for $27 each. It also has developed three sterling silver party favors: a horn, noisemaker and party hat, ranging from $225 to $300 apiece.
Toys and knick-knacks
The Museum Company at Ala Moana has had a Millennium display up since the beginning of August - mainly interactive products such as scrapbook calendars and time capsules, one historically-themed and the other with an option to send a letter to be sealed in a capsule in New York's Times Square.
It also sells Millenniumopoly, a Monopoly take-off with a box that boasts, "The game that took a thousand years to create." In the game, you "purchase" significant people, events and inventions from history instead of streets and avenues. You can buy television, Amelia Earhart, the Plague or the Magna Carta. Avoid being stuck in the 20th century (the Monopoly equivalent of jail). Do your best to buy the Internet and the Year 2000 (Park Place and Boardwalk, respectively). You can purchase blocks of time (houses) and maybe even put a century (hotel) on your "property."The game is also available at the Rand McNally store for $24.95.
In its collectibles section, JC Penney has Millennium Princess Barbie dressed in blue velvet and silver lace. Soon to follow is Hallmark's Millennium Princess Barbie ornament.
The Hallmark Store has introduced "Crash" the Y2K bug, a fat turquoise-green mosquito-like creature that makes a breaking-glass noise when hit. He's also featured on stationery products there.
The San Francisco Music Box Company has musical ornaments, and angel and Saint Nicholas figures bearing a silver Millennium 2000 coin.
At Sears, there are small piles of stuffed animals: Mark and Millie (as in Mark of the Millennium), male and female stuffed silver ball creatures, teddy bears and dogs wearing millennium shirts.Stock is down to about 40 percent of what was initially brought in, said Beverly Guzman, manager of Ala Moana Sears' men's apparel section, where the millennium display is located.
Guzman said she thinks sales have more to do with the appeal of specific products than the 01-01-00 logo. Bags, backpacks and countdown clocks sold well; aluminum time capsules have not, she said.
"We are going to be receiving more party-type festive items in the next shipment," she said. "We've noticed the interest level has kind of dwindled down recently, but I suspect as we get closer to the holiday gift-giving season, I think it'll pick up again."
A clothes call
For those anxious about the passing century, Sears has a line of T-shirts labeled "The Last Shirt 12.31.99."JC Penney and Sears have similar assortments of clothing, note pads, mouse pads, umbrellas, playing cards, appointment books and backpacks. The department stores both carry predominantly the 01-01-00, The Mark of the Millennium brand of merchandise.
Kahu Baldwin, JC Penney store manager, echoed Guzman's thoughts that stores have not even begun to see the effects of the millennium craze.
"The hype for the local resident is going to be fourth quarter -- October, November - and also gift giving," Baldwin said. "Then there is going to be a mad scramble."For now, sales have been steady with a different market, she said. "The tourists, the Japanese tourists especially, want American-made products that say millennium."
JC Penney's products can be found throughout the store in various departments, such as men's, women's, and children's clothing.
At Pearlridge, Forever 21, Rave and Charlotte Russe all have stretch polyester shirts with Year 2000 themes geared toward the teen set. But store workers warn that stock changes constantly and Millennium wear has been moving quickly.
Stores are making it their business to anticipate your millennium keepsake wishlist and are stocking their shelves with items like: 2,000 or more
millennial keepsakes
Backpacks
