By GINGER LITTRELL

I was brought up to speed in teen fashion last week when my sister-in-law turned me on “Hollister” at The Mall of America. I was anxious to see where my 16-year-old niece, Lauren, and her friends invest in their “Cali-style” look.

Hollister’s ornate façade is offset by larger-than-life window posters of shirtless hunks wearing low-slung jeans. People my age look a little out of place in the store and the only heads that turn are the clerks in hopes that “grandma” is in there buying gift certificates (or gathering fodder for a column).

The store lighting is low and young people strewn about on overstuffed couches bob their heads to the beat of tunes like, “I’ll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret.” (Check out the store’s website and you can hear it for yourself!)

If you’re young and on the prowl, Hollister is a Mecca for people watching. It gives new meaning to the term “shopping club.”

Well trained to keep the company’s “brand-powered momentum” going, the ethnically diverse sales staff has been carefully recruited by Hollister’s mother ship, Abercrombie & Fitch.

In my search for “the rest of the story,” I read that in settling a $40 million class action lawsuit for racial discrimination, A&F agreed to create an “office of diversity” to recruit more African, Latino and Asian American employees. The “All-American” look is not just Caucasian blond-haired, blue-eyed hunks and honeys anymore.

Though A&F seems to have listened to their public and toned down what some people have labeled pornography in their advertising, they say they’ll never go totally conservative. “Ads will still show beautiful bodies and lots of kissing,” say ad execs.

Like those who wear the Hollister seagull logo, clothing selections are diverse.

For $59.50 you can get a pair of “Cali-destroyed” flare jeans with rips and tears down the front or a less ragged look of “vintage destroyed washed” jeans for $39.50. A polo shirt “with nicking and grinding details” (snips and holes here and there) and a “deconstructed hem” (cut apart and raveled) goes for $24.50.

I wonder what employees at Hollister’s sewing plants in Vietnam or Brazil think when their supervisor tells them to pick up their perfectly constructed shirt and take a snip out of the sleeve or collar with their scissors or purposely tear a hole in the front pocket. I wonder what kind of clothing those workers have in their closets. I can see them scratching their heads and wondering why our rich young people choose to wear “rags.”

In all fairness, I have to say that Hollister does have some nice clothes. The vintage, ragged look is optional with more traditional preppy shirts and jeans also available.

I was curious to see what attracted my niece to “the look,” where they were made and why she likes the store. Here’s her e-mail, complete with her hip abbreviations. I think it’s worth sharing and speaks volumes about customer service, no matter what the age group.

“Hey Aunt Ginger, I got into Hollister stuff when I was an 8th grader. That’s when I got my first official pair of Hollister jeans. I never wear them n-e more b/c they are too short, but I still keep them! I love Hollister s-o-o much because the workers in there are always really helpful and nice and, now knowing wut workin in retail is like, I understand their job more. I’m not the customer who just throws the clothing back and doesn’t fold it, or leaves it in the dressing room. I go to the Hollister store or the web site at least once every two weeks, sum times more! I like it because (a) everyone is wearing it and when you wear it, u don’t get n-e crap for wut u look like - people just leave you alone (b.) I like the California look — Ohio is plain out BORING, so it’s kinda like you’re wearing your dream (to be on a beach with sun warming your face and arms) (c.)I like their signature colors, which are white and brown together along with navy, burgundy, and pink. They have four pairs of signature jeans that never go on sale just like Justice (where I work) and I have all four of them! lol. They are really comfy to wear and the fabric is soft. When you walk in the store, they say, ‘Hi, welcome to Hollister. Our jeans have the coolest fit. Can I help you find a pair?’ or ‘Hollister jeans make everything look better. Can I get your size?’ THEY AREN’T LYING!

Even for big white girls’ booties like mine, they are sweet on the tush! lol. I like all their polos because I do like the preppy look a lot and I’ve been getting into those more recently. Other than that, I buy jackets, sweaters, jeans, and sometimes shirts there. The people who work there are always the ‘right off the beach look’ and always look really good! Mom hates their pricing and thinks they are crap material, but I love it!”

I hesitate to be too hard on these new age kids because I remember how cool I looked back in the 20th century. What teen in the last 50 years hasn’t had a fascination for anything Californian? I certainly did. Bleached blond hair, cut off white Levis and a guaranteed-to-bleed madras shirt completed the surfer girl look in the 1960s, and meeting a bronzed, blond surfer boy was only a dream for an Ohio girl.

We might’ve been the generation to invent the frayed look with our too-long bellbottoms that dragged the ground, raggedy cut-off sweatshirts worn wrong-side-out and smelly water buffalo sandals that were custom fitted by wading in puddles. I alternated between the hippie and preppy look, according to how I was feeling about the world that day.

The only difference in Hollister clothes and ours was the necessity of making our own adjustments.

Store bought skirts were never short enough, so we hemmed them — sometimes temporarily out of Mom and Dad’s sight — with masking tape. If it just barely covered our rear end, it was perfect.

Name brand logos weren’t prevalently displayed back then, so we bought inexpensive brands and jazzed them up to fit the fad. One of the best dressed girls on campus, whose mother was an excellent seamstress, bought men’s pinstripe wool suits at the local thrift store. The pants were cut apart to make a mini skirt and with a few adjustments to the coat, she looked like a million bucks.

My husband had his mother sew gussets of patriotic material into the inseam of his jeans to create his own “signature” look.

Like today’s teens, we didn’t intentionally try to aggravate our parents by our “look,” but they complained about it. They hated our music — and our hair — and the way we talked — and — though it was pretty mild — our disrespect for authority.

Trends come and go and history continues to repeat itself.

It’s biblical!

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9.