Rumaging through the trash to find out more about the end product

Posted by: goofy328 on: June 21, 2008

• In: fashion | opinion
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Funny thing about discount stores.  Some maintain that the clothing in them are junk products that the designers couldn’t give away while others maintain that they are the only place where you can find unbelievable deals on designer clothing.  To them you can actually get a lot more for your money than you can shopping at department stores or boutiques.  The true answer is often somewhere in between, as discount stores often give away subtle clues about the clothing lines the designer puts out and the overall success that company may be experiencing.

You have to take into context the overall quality of what is being offered at the discount stores before you draw any quick conclusions about a clothing label.  Discount stores are often better for this because department stores will inevitably discount everything in the store to some degree when last years merchandise is getting in the way of store space for the next season.  With a discount store though various seasons are often sold right next to each other, except when it comes to outerwear.  Other than that people have been known to wear various lengths and weights of clothing throughout the year for various reasons, so those stores will continue to sell heavier weights of trousers and shirts. 

Take Tommy Hilfiger for example.  Quality was an issue in the early days when no one knew about the label and had risen to a certain point when the label had reached that saturation point.  The label continued to exist on it’s own momentum until the early part of the new millennium then sharply dove once Tommy tried to revive the brand through a series of new labels that failed miserably.  What is often missed though is that the actual quality of the materials that go into the product is probably better than ever now.

For most consumers that were strong followers of the label it probably had a lot more to do with the fact that the label seemed to be stuck in the late nineties than anything else that drove them away from it.  Seeing it for myself in the factory stores and even in a discount store the other day and again a few months back, clearly the quality is still there.  In fact it seems luxurious compared to a lot of other newer labels that left it in their wake. 

A good example of where that is not the case though is with labels like Pierre Cardin, which were heavily diluted through entirely too aggressive attempts to extend the reach of the label with an exorbitant amount of licensing deals and FUBU, which is a shell of it’s former self.  Granted the quality of the materials going into FUBU were never really that good to begin with, particularly the Platinum label which relied heavily on thick polyester but the design alone made it a very difficult label for other urban-wear labels to position themselves against.

Once FUBU had begun to concede to a number of newer labels spearheaded by the executives of record companies; Phat Farm, Sean Jean, Rocawear, it seemed as though it’s obituary had already been written.  The company did well against Karl Kani because his stuff was conservative in comparison and he had his own problems with counterfeiters diluting his brand.  It also survived well against European urban-wear companies like Girbaud and Pepe Jeans of London mainly because they simply did not have the same customers.  Slowly, these other companies not only began to compete with FUBU on price and on design, but they offered better quality, though at first it was rather negligible to what degree their product was better.

It’s difficult to determine whether or not price and quality were the real death of FUBU or simply the fact that someone else was offering something different in general.  Once FUBU had lost it’s following amongst men it began to invest heavily into it’s women’s line, and the results were actually pretty good.  Yet once Baby Phat began to really take off though, as unique as the designs in their womens line was, particularly for plus sized women, the sheer popularity of the Baby Phat label seemed to have the effect of not only shutting down what few offerings the label had for women but for everyone else across the board as well.

What had really happened there?  Baby Phat offered a very luxurious product for women, then again so did Rocawear and a number of other labels.  Sean Jean never really got too heavily involved and these days their womens label is all but nonexistent.  In fact Baby Phat did to women’s urban-wear what Phat Farm couldn’t do for men’s clothing in the urban-wear genre.  They have went on to offer a definitively more luxurious line absent the logos that appears to more directly compete with Italian and French clothing labels providing an interesting product at a lower price point than what some of those labels though with an urban flair that you expect.

By the time Baby Phat had peaked in it’s popularity FUBU had it’s work cut out for it.  There were literally hundreds of urban-wear labels out there, 30 of which appear to be the main draw for those shopping at discount urban-wear stores.  Even Joseph Abboud has an interesting jeans line out there.  Those European lines aren’t in the discount stores because of concerns about quality though, that had never really been an issue, what does seem prevalent is that the style seems to be more couture and experimental than even urban-wear often allows itself to be.  None of those labels are really that popular either as they have all seen better days around 15 years ago.

They can also be somewhat conservative as well; anyone in Miskeen, Parrish, LRG or Bathing Ape wouldn’t have much of a reason to wear those old labels.  What I’ve noticed, is that labels like Tommy Hilfiger aren’t in the discount stores more when they aren’t popular, they’re actually there a lot less.  That could suggest that those companies aren’t purchasing as much of the product these days or that they want to save space to push other designer clothing at deep discounts it’s not sure.  But the days of finding every single store over saturated with the likes of Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger are pretty much behind us. 

Times have changed dramatically.  Newer clothing labels are just starting out with better quality, better design, and more luxurious materials than the older labels we grew up with did.  Newer labels are born almost every minute, but people only seem to want to talk about the urban-wear labels because that is the mainstream product that will show up in boutiques across America, rather than just in New York or Paris. 

So what can you take from seeing goods in discount stores?  First off most labels will have a small percentage of goods in a discount label regardless of how well it is doing.  Now if the discount store is the only place where you can find the label that is another thing entirely.  Discount stores are often the first place people find out about labels that are outside of the mainstream for any number of reasons.  For example Bugle Boy was huge in the eighties and then had almost disappeared into near obscurity before resurfacing at Family Dollar. 

Technically Bugle Boy was a better label back then, but at least they have a way to coexist in a changing market.  The other takeaway from seeing clothing says something about what people think that designer goods are worth.  You may be perfectly willing to pay $120 for a t-shirt, but not everyone else is.  A great example of this is what happened with labels like Coogi and Ed Hardy.  Most people know the latter for their t-shirts, and the former for their reintroduction into the fashion world as a competitive urban-wear label.  Coogi was a very rare and hard to find label before they got into urban-wear, and a discounter would be the last place you would ever find their merchandise.

I have to admit I was doubtful at first, because the only staple they ever had was this hideous sweater that looked like a bunch of one celled organisms squished together.  But in the end their stuff was great; not only did they do for urban-wear what Tommy had done for the college prep look over a decade ago they had a lot of a followers and had developed a serious presence in urban-wear. Yet a lot of their stuff ends up at the discount stores for a few reasons.  One is the stuff is ridiculously loud and it takes a lot of nerve to wear their stuff.  The other is that is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.  But at the end of the day it may actually extend the brand to those who aren’t willing to shop amongst a bunch of teenagers in a boutique looking for something different.

With Ed Hardy it’s a bit different.  Everyone loves the shirts but not everyone wants to pay for them.  Every once in a while you’ll actually see one of the shirts in a discount store, still selling for like $40 but for some that may be reason enough to take it into consideration.  Also it’s great that the stuff is just hanging there in a bunch of unrelated stuff, it sort of surprises you there is everything else and then there is this.  Usually that “everything else” is stuff that just can’t compete.

The irony is that Ed Hardy is under a company that sells it’s own label of t-shirts for a lot more that is very difficult to find.  Usually three times the price, few skulls or hearts, but with bizarre tripped out themes that are a lot more interesting.  When consumers do their homework Ed Hardy can be a gateway into the world of Christian Audigier, which has a few different lines, including wine.  In this way the discount store turns into a serious promotion for the brand, assuming that individuals will be interested in the origins of the attire enough to seek it out for full price.

Discount stores serve a lot of different purposes for a lot of different people and shouldn’t be easily dismissed as places that sell stuff “that is on sale for a very good reason” or stuff that “nobody wants”.  Sure when you’re young and a teenager and you think the only way to get ahead is by paying top dollar for the latest stuff it’s easy to assume that.  But give it some time; you’ll not only find some labels that you could never convince your parents to buy for you, even on sale, but you can learn a lot about how fashion works by observing the trends.  Not the flashiest place and a bit pedestrian, but then of course the real treasures are rarely found where everyone else is searching for them …

Tags: discount stores, fashion