New Princess Polly Storefront Fails to Live up to its Online Presence
Princess Polly is a women’s fashion boutique that started in Australia and is now an international company. It has grown immensely through the shop’s online and social media presence. The first US storefront debut in the Westfield Century City Mall on Sep. 8, 2023, had high expectations from the employees because their online presence is strong and organized. Princess Polly gives women a variety of clothing to choose from, from party wear to casual wear; Princess Polly has it all. However, problems with the store’s management have led to upset employees and stressed managers running the store compared to its online presence.
Stella Ferguson, a former Princess Polly employee, was hired in August 2023, a month before the store’s grand opening. She quit just five months after the opening. The hiring process for a sales associate at Princess Polly wasn’t just a typical job interview but more like an audition. Ferguson had previously worked at Brandy Melville, Santa Monica, for a year before it closed down.
Ferguson had to go through a five-step hiring process for Princess Polly. The first was a video audition she submitted by herself. After receiving a callback, she had a Zoom meeting, where she answered questions about her prior work experience and how Ferguson would make Princess Polly a more inclusive environment. One more Zoom interview and an in-person meeting later, Ferguson was given the job. The job process at the store was competitive and highly selective, all for a retail job.
Once hired, Ferguson was told by the store’s management team that they should feel like family and that everyone should feel valued and accepted. This narrative disappeared, however, when the store opened. “When we were at the headquarters, there was a lot of happiness and positivity and really good ideas circulating about the opening of the store, and all of that did not happen,” said Ferguson.
The combination of Princess Polly’s strong media presence and marketing resulted in a massive turnout for its opening. On Sep. 8, more than 100 people were lined up outside. “People were excited because sizing is hard to do online, so the amount of traction we received for the store opening was insane.” Ferguson said.
Although the clothes have not been changed since the store opened, “They’ve incorporated some new styles, but they have not gotten rid of anything from the previous season,” Ferguson said. Not a lot of new additions have been made to the store since the opening, and the store has remained the same. “I think that’s a huge issue because a lot of people come in expecting new products, and there aren’t any new products,” Ferguson said.
The expectations for the Princess Polly store were very high because of their successful online presence. However, those expectations were not met because of poor management, leaving employees unhappy and unfulfilled. “The management was awful and very harsh, and there was nothing that we were promised in terms of a relaxed, family-like team. It was too much structure for a place that didn’t have any to begin with.” Ferguson said.
Customers now additionally have the option to return clothes bought online to the physical storefront, which has further the brand. “I know that they are losing money rather than gaining money,” said Ferguson. “I think that the bigger downfall is the amount of money that they are losing, and they tend to blame it on [the employees] and our performance.”
When Ferguson confronted her managers about how she felt mistreated to the point where it was affecting her and her coworker’s mental health, her managers acknowledged her concerns with their own problems about the store. “They essentially told me… the reason we’re getting on your ass so much is because the store is failing,” she said. “The store is essentially not making any money because they are losing all profits because of all the returns to the store.”
Ferguson quit Princess Polly after working for only five months as a full-time sales associate. Out of 28 coworkers who started there, five had already left before her, and one had just given her two-week notice.
The Most to Least Affordable Nail Salons in LA.
Prices for getting your nails done, especially in a big city like Los Angeles, have gone up 10% within the past three years. For young college girls looking for a way to spruce up their style, this can become a financial burden and barrier that has led to the epidemic of naked nails. Lucky for the Loyola Marymount students, there are many nail salons close to campus with different price ranges.
Nail salons provide tons of different services which include gel and acrylic nails and base the price off the specific service the customer wants. These services are all different and unique in their own way, as some nails can last up to four weeks, while other services may need fresh nails because the nails have outgrown them – this is known as an acrylic fill. But with the rise of prices since COVID, these are the best places to get your nails done at a reasonable price.
Happy Nails in Marina Del Rey has the most reasonable prices, ranging from $60-$40 to get acrylics and gel nails. Many LMU students go there to get their nails done like Mia Casillas,a Loyola Marymount University sophomore, started getting her nails done consistently last year because she has a job. “I personally don’t think nails should be above $40-60” Casillas said. Casilla’s favorite nail salon is Happy Nails in Marina Del Rey, one of the few salons across the city still offering an acrylic set for less than $100.
Casilla’s nails’ from Happy Nails
However, reviews of the salon from Ella Rozea, a Loyola Marymount student from Rhode Island, suggests that “Happy Nails give the cheapest prices I’ve seen, but I would not say the best quality.” Rozea’s statement on the quality that Happy Nails does is a “you get what you pay for” and that there is a reason prices are so low.
Sensation Nail Spa in Santa Monica follows Happy Nails for reasonable prices. “I pay $65 for gel nails and they do a very good job. I think it’s very inexpensive for what I get.” said Scarlett Royal from Brentwood.
12 Twelve Nail Bar in Marina Del Rey is another option for students to get their nails done there, Carly Giotto, a Loyola Marymount Student, went to 12Twelve Nail Bar in Marina Del Rey “I think it was reasonably priced for a really good job. I paid $75 without a tip for a full set of Gel and shape.” Giotto said.
On the higher end of prices lies Varnish Lab in Playa Vista. “It’s expensive, at least more than other places I’ve been,” said Isabel Flisher, a Playa Vista resident. “I get acrylics and pay $85 for my nails, but $100 including tip depending on whether I am getting a full or new set. I think that they do a really good job, but they are overpriced.” Flisher said. “A lot of the reason I go there is for connivence; it’s right across the street from my apartment and I walk there which only takes me one minute.” Flisher only goes there for convenience since it is in the same proximity to her.
BEÁUT Nails in Playa Vista is also an option for students to get their nails done but is also on the pricier side of nails. “I go to BEÁUT Nails because it was an option closest to campus. I pay $75 for my acrylic gel nails and it’s so expensive.” said Lily Flexon, a Loyola Marymount junior. Flexon enjoys getting her nails done monthly and all together pays close to $100 with tip, “I get them done consistently at BEÁUT because they last me a month so I’m more willing to pay.” Flexon added.
With the prices going up nearly 10% after COVID, many women cannot consistently maintain and afford a monthly manicure or pedicure. “I’m not ok with how much I spend on a manicure,” said Alex Priestly, a Culver City local. “ It’s a lot in Los Angeles. Sometimes I take breaks over a few months or I just really try to get fills instead of a new set every time.” Priestley said. Not only are the prices expensive, but having to incorporate tip money for the nail technician can up the cost even more. Priestley can not recommend any nail salons because she hasn’t gotten her nails done since August because of the demanding cost.
Many people would say getting your nails done monthly is now a luxury with how expensive nail salons are charging. With nail prices being raised across the board, many salons are still out of peoples price ranges. Some salons like Happy Nails still offer prices that some girls can afford, but most still themselves question whether $100 is too much to spend on a pampering session.
How a Syracuse punter is using his NIL to turn his mustache into merchandise.
Bella LeChau
What better way for a college athlete to make money off their personal brand? By having a unique last name and signature mustache.
A Syracuse punter, Jack Stonehouse, has a way of using his position and last name as a pun. Stonehouse has been using his Name Image and Likeness to promote himself as a punter by using a clever pun that stems from his last name and his signature mustache that he proudly wears– “Stachehouse.” Creating this funny and unique pun was an idea from a tweet before the 2024 season, and Stonehouse quickly turned it into a funny, bright orange, unique shirt.
Stonehouse keeps up with his socials and received a tweet that gave him the idea of becoming “Stachehouse” in August of 2024.
In 2021, the NCAA allows student-athletes to make money from their personal brand also known as “NIL.” The NIL laws vary from state to state, and vary from colleges and universities but allows college athletes to profit from their name from brand deals, advertisements, and sponsors.
Stonehouse always has a clean cut mustache during the football season and uses it as his signature so people will always remember that their punter has a mustache. Stonehouse played at Mizzou for a year and a half as a redshirt and ever since he played his first game, he had the mustache and decided that he has to have it at every game– no matter what. “The day before we travel or have any game, I shave my entire face and clip the mustache to become a mustache,” Stonehouse said.
Punters are often overlooked in football and ever since he played his first game, Stonehouse saw the recognition from fans as a punter not because of his excellent kicks, but his mustache. “Since I started to play, all of the comments were like ‘Damn this guy has a good mustache,’ and any publicity is good publicity,” Stonehouse said.
Stonehouse sent the tweet out to his family and they all immediately saw Stachehouse as a fitting concept for Jack. Other Syracuse players also sell t-shirts on the side representing their names and numbers, worn by family, friends, and fans. “Jack is a silly guy, so when the tweet came out, we all said that’s a perfect idea for a shirt. It screams Jack,” Jack’s mother, Sue Stonehouse, said.
Stonehouse pictured when he dyed his mustache orange this season.
Sue Stonehouse runs a nonprofit organization called “Rolling for Pink,” which made the process of making the Stachehouse shirts come together easily, “I called my printer and told him the idea and he said ‘absolutely.’ We had a vision and it happened in a week,” Sue Stonehouse said.
Jack wanted Stachehouse to be an affordable shirt for everyone to wear, selling them for 25 dollars. “Jack is not getting a lot of profit from the shirts, but it’s something fun for him to do during the football season,” said Sue. The bright orange shirt with the large words “Stachehouse” and a mustache in the middle is unrecognizable in the football stands. With the Stonehouse family in California and Jack being in New York, the Stonehouse family went to Jack’s game in Las Vegas and wore Stachehouse shirts. “About 30 of us attended that game and we all wore the shirts and it was hilarious because we were so recognizable in a bright orange shirt with a mustache on it. People were asking us if they could buy them. We had two older women put on fake mustaches at the game. It was hilarious,”
This season, Stachehouse shirts became higher in demand than Sue or Jack were expecting from the Las Vegas game, “I think we need to have two orders for next season for more shirts for Jack and I separately,” said Sue Stonehouse.
In order for Stonehouse to promote Stachehouse, Brooke Stonehouse, Jack’s older sister created an instagram “stache_house41.” Brooke graduated from The University of Toledo with a marketing degree and used her marketing skills to run the instagram for Jack. Jack, who is in New York, provides Brooke with photos for the instagram, “What helped me was using a platform called Hootsuite, which gave me a good basis for running his social media and keeping track of the instagram,” said Brooke. “Stachehouse is a lifestyle brand created by Syracuse’s punter, #41, Jack Stonehouse!” from the instagram bio. The word “lifestyle” is incorporated in the instagram because Brooke wants Jack to remain open to the possibility of coming out with other merchandise, not just shirts. Now that the football season is over for Jack, the production of shirts for Stachehouse is not currently selling.
Jack isn’t the first punter in his family. The Stonehouse punters include Jack, his dad, John Stonehouse, his uncle, and cousin who currently plays for the Tennessee Titans, Ryan Stonehouse. “Back then, we didn’t have stuff to promote us as players back then, like it is today with social media,” said John Stonehouse. John Stonehouse punted for USC Football and eventually played for the New York Giants.
John Stonehouse pictured left. Jack Stonehouse pictures right.
The new rule has been around for almost four years, but has given extraordinary opportunities to other student athletes taking the advantage of using NIL. Student athletes could be paid for under the NCAA NIL rules for personal appearances, autographs and memorabilia, public speaking, blogging, merchandise, and ambassador roles. According to “1075 The Fan,” the top paying student athletes that use NIL are Shedeur Sanders with a $6.2 million valuation, Livvy Dunne with a $4.1 million valuation, and Travis Hunter with a $3.4 million valuation.
“If I could do it. Yes I would do it. But I think the NCAA needs to regulate the NIL money a little bit better than they do right now, it’s totally free and open and they can make as much money as they want and I think they should make some money, but I don’t think they should make as much as they are making. I think they should be there for school,” said John Stonehouse.
Despite the NCAA legalizing players to use their NIL, there are concerns about college athletes using these extraordinary opportunities to their advantage and it can come with inequality amongst players, distraction from academics and athletics, and tax implications, according to Bishop Business. “I don’t see NIL as a bad thing, but a good thing all around, it benefits the athletes getting their personal brand out there and career opportunities, while also promoting a brand and giving them more business,” said Sophia Pearlman, a senior soccer player at Loyola Marymount University. “There are more pros than cons for legalizing NIL for athletes in the NCAA,” said Pearlman.
Thus, college athletes using NIL gives athletes a creative range of what they want to promote, “Student athletes’ hard work is a different kind of work that athletes are now getting rewarded for using NIL and for their own personal enjoyment,” said David Lozano, a baseball player at Glendale College.
In September 2024 sparked controversy with University of Nevada (UNLV) quarterback Matthew Sulka after an NIL dispute with UNLV not following up with their verbal offer of $100,000 from an assistant coach. From ESPN, Sulka and his representative made demands on UNLV, using its NIL collective in order to continue playing. Sulka claims that he was asking for what he was verbally promised from UNLV. The offer that was promised to Sulka was verbal and never formalized which doesn’t give his claims any validity. “The NCAA fully supports college athletes profiting from their NIL, but unfortunately there is little oversight or accountability in the NIL space and far too often promises made to student-athletes are broken,” Tim Buckley, NCAA senior vice president for external affairs, said in a statement. “Positive changes are underway at the NCAA to deliver more benefits to student-athletes but without clear legal authority granted by the courts or by Congress, the NCAA, conferences and schools have limited authority to regulate third parties involved in NIL transactions.”
The regulation of NIL being fairly new, the difficulty for athletes and NCAA in cases like these can make athletes turn away from colleges because of the money aspect, rather than playing their sport and academics.
Before Stonehouse played at Syracuse, he attended the University of Missouri for a year and a half. At Mizzou, Stonehouse wore a red shirt for his freshman year. Not using NIL, Stonehouse transferred from Mizzou to Syracuse, “They told me for a year and a half they were gonna put me on scholarship. During my time there, they completely lied to me, so I didn’t understand why I kept staying there if they were gonna keep on lying, so I ended up leaving. At Syracuse they aren’t lying to me and I can play there without being told false promises,” said Stonehouse.
The tweet from OrangeChuck opened a door for Stonehouse to use the NIL opportunity. “I honestly don’t really know any of the rules, but NIL can open so many doors for athletes and I look at the legalization of NIL as a good thing for athletes to make money and have career opportunities,” said Stonehouse. The NCAA is a billion dollar organization with more than 500,000 athletes. “The NCAA is making a lot of money off of their players and giving zero percent back to them. So I think now student athletes think of it as a career more than anything else. If NIL wasn’t legal, players would do it illegally and try not to get caught,” said Stonehouse.
Even though Stachehouse is not a huge brand, Stonehouse found a creative and fun way for him to use his NIL during his football career at Syracuse. “Let’s be real, no one cares about the punter when they’re watching football, so that’s why the idea of Stachehouse is so fun for me. I make silly bright orange shirts that show my mustache all because someone noticed and tweeted it out,” said Jack.
Stonehouse has future plans for Stachehouse for his final football season at Syracuse in 2025. Using his NIL to start a creative brand to represent him as a punter has been a way to create a bigger community for Stonehouse at Syracuse.
Two time cancer survivor dances through the month of September
Robb Bolton, a two time cancer survivor, and Director of Campus Recreation at Pepperdine University, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 42 and experienced the cruel realities that the disease has on an everyday life, even after entering remission. Bolton, who grew up in Arizona and moved to Thousand Oaks, California in adulthood,was alarmed when he couldn’t find a short term rehabilitation program for kids battling cancer, especially as the disease is even more detrimental on a child’s growing body. Thus, Bolton took matters into his own hands, and founded Cancerfit, a non-profit which helps to improve the quality of life of cancer patients.
Not many people know that September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month, but it’s also because no one wants to talk about children having cancer. Throughout the month, Bolton posted funny dance videos online to spread awareness on a softer and funnier note.“Adults is one thing, but people don’t want to see a bald pale little kid with tubes sticking out their nose, it’s too hard for people, so that’s one of the biggest problems with it, is trying to get enough support financially there’s all these issues and childhood cancer is on the bottom of support versus any adult cancer, so the awareness month is even more critical, the problem is that people don’t want to see it, it’s too hard.” Bolton said.
Bolton started his work in the non-profit sphere by working with the Teddy Bear Cancer foundation in 2011, an organization dedicated to financially supporting families with children fighting cancer. Through his work with the organization, he began training child cancer patients at his private gym for free, when he got the spark to start doing this work, years before Cancerfit. Bolton’s inspiration to start his own organization began in 2011, when he began researching rehabilitation programs,he was surprised to find only three programs across the United States that provided services specifically for child cancer patients, and none on the West Coast.
Bolton wanted to learn more about these programs and thus, he flew to New York to see how other nonprofits organized themselves, and became a Certified Athletic Trainer by the National Athletic Trainers Association. That’s when he began his work to establish Cancerfit as a nonprofit organization on the West Coast for exercise and wellness for childhood cancer patients.
There are lots of foundations that help families raise money for their kids for research and treatment, but Bolton understood that patients who are in treatment now, would not benefit from the research until years from now, which does not benefit kids currently undergoing fighting the disease.
Through his own experience with cancer, he had a unique understanding of the physical challenges that patients face and wanted to help other patients overcome those struggles, “After I had thyroid cancer, that is when I learned how to use exercise to recover properly for myself, which I then applied to people that I helped because that first time around I had to learn how to adjust, and not push myself like I used to and take it a lot slower, but exercise was a key part of my recovery,” said Bolton.
Chemotherapy and radiation are the intense treatments that cancer patients receive, specifically in kids because chemotherapy is very severe on a child’s growing body that can set them back from daily activities, “Knowing that they needed short term rehabilitation to gain their strength and energy back, but also connect them with their peers again because, when they have cancer and they’re out of school and in the hospital for a long time they lose that connection and that can lead to a whole host of other issues.” said Bolton. Even after entering remission, many patients including Bolton, experience long term health problems, including secondary cancers. Currently, Bolton has been diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 52, and the side effects of the harsh treatment has made it difficult for him to run Cancerfit, but his wife, Elle Bolton, a four time cancer survivor herself, has been running the program while he is on medical leave.
Currently Bolton, has been doing exercises daily to keep fit despite his setback of battling lung cancer.
Childhood cancer is especially hard to navigate when families want their child to get better while maintaining a somewhat normal childhood. Bolton’s main focus when it comes to training patients is cardiovascular training with three main components: strength, flexibility, and mobility. Training these areas for cancer patients who have been through severe treatment will hopefully encourage patients to exercise and simultaneously continue with their normal lives.
Cancerfit has helped so many children and families that Bolton doesn’t think of his organization as a job, but as his passion.. He has forged individual connections with all his kids and their families, and has developed a nurturing community.. With all of the support from his Cancerfit family, Bolton is never discouraged to continue fighting and spreading awareness about childhood cancer. He is continually inspired by his kids from Cancerfit, who have fought so hard for their lives and have rewarded him by living as normal lives as possible. “I draw a lot of inspiration from [the patients], their ability to be resilient is pretty incredible.”