Visiting 20 malls in 60 days

Now that deserves a medal. L.A. money manager Alex Rubalcava has been tweeting his observations. Among them:

--The age at which young women of a certain size move from Torrid to Lane Bryant seems to go up every year.

--Another, faddish non-traditional tenant: recording studios for kids and groups to make high production value music videos.

--Like Wal-Mart has mentioned many times, malls also see bi-weekly traffic pulses driven by payroll timing.

--Most creative use of dead mall space I saw? A charter high school at a mall in Torrance.

--For the life of me, I don't understand the thinking of adults who buy and wear branded apparel from Abercrombie, American Eagle, etc. Don't they realize that those are kids' brands?

--Forever 21 joins my list of retailers I wish were public so I could see their financials. Along with Trader Joe's and BevMo.

--Department stores seem to have taken a lot of momentum back from specialty stores in apparel. That said, as well as Macy's is doing, they need to standardize their stores a lot more.

--Cotton On (private, Australian) and ANGL (private, US) seem to be ubiquitous and the fastest growing apparel retailers.

--Nobody does center of the mall experiences better than Westfield. Train rides, jumping pens with bungee rope, live music, etc.

--The most successful mall retailer, by a country mile, is Panda Express.

--Weekday traffic at open air malls & lifestyle centers (3rd Street, Century City, Victoria Gardens) is massively higher than indoor malls. The gap narrows on the weekends, when traditional malls show signs of life.

--Big growth in other non-traditional tenants like hair and nail salons, day care centers, etc.