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Ludicrously expensive clothes

winterknight

winterknight

Pure in Heart
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So on March 22, Abercrombie and Fitch - they of the pre-torn jeans and the I-swear-to-god-it-wasn't-supposed-to-be-homoerotic-honest catalog, opened their first store outside North America, in Burlington Gardens just off London's Saville Row. I went and had a look yesterday, and very nice it is too.

Coincidentally with this opening, the store's website received an update. Part of this update was the launch of a UK-specific version of the site with prices in Sterling. However, they have also very thoroughly put redirects on the original site so that all accesses to the site from Britain go to the UK version. It appears that it is no longer possible to access the main www.abercrombie.com site from a British IP without going through a proxy.

The reason? so you can't see that their stuff, which is already expensive by US standards, costs twice as much on this side of the Pond.

Now admittedly, that isn't that much more expensive than similar quality designer brands in the UK (a basic pair of A&F jeans is about £10 more than the equivalent Levis) but still, it makes you think.

(And yes, I did buy some of their hideously expensive stuff)
 
If people are stupid enough to buy it then they deserve to be ripped off.
 
My point was more to point out the disparity in clothes pricing between opposite sides of the pond rather than Abercrombie-bashing. Like I said, they're not really that much worse than many other retailers over here, and were merely a recent example of the phenomenon.
 
I have a pair of AE destroyed jeans and I pride myself on getting ludicrously expensive clothes for really really cheap :)
 
It's been suggested that if I continue buying A&F, I will either look as hot as their models, or perhaps even have sex with one. So far, it hasn't happened, but I'm not giving up!

Lex
 
I stopped shopping at A&F in my early twenties.

I'm now an Armani whore. I get in the ass at the register, but they do it with a smile.
 
The rip-off of the Europeans by their retailers has been going on for a very long time now.

See, your staple 501's used to be $98.00 (USD) in Austria in mid-90s. At the very same time, I was buying all of my 501's at Mervyns in San Francisco for the good, ole $26.00.

Admittedly, part of the reason was an extremely weak US Dollar (we are going thru that shit again) and the fact that the importers might have hedged their dollars at the higher rate. Still the price disparity has been striking.

Even within the EU, we are experiencing significant price differences with the major retailers like ZARA, Springfield, Pull & Bear, H&M... Big price differences, especially during the sales are more than obvious due to the use of the very same currency (EUR).

The retailers and the producers alike are permanently testing the market, just like absolutely everyone else, and are hiking up the prices up to the point when they start registering falling sales.

I do find most of that pricing completely ridiculous to start with but, hey, it is called a free market economy... so, guys, the more you flash out those shiny charge cards the higher the prices go...

---
SC
 
If you don't buy their stuff pre-destroyed ... you'll likely find them so ill-made, they soon will be.




That's an off-topic Abercrombie bash ... but it's too obvious to take them on for trying to conceal price-gouging.


I really don't need my clothes to fall apart before their time ... and I really don't need to pay above top-dollar (or pound) for the privilege.

But I do like looking at the photos in the shop. (One part of a contest I ran at a mall required the contestants to find out how many nipples were on display in Abercrombie.)
 
Guys--it's all supply and demand.

Clothes are more expensive in Europe because people there are willing to pay more. The supply is the same--all of it comes from the same factories in China. When I lived in Germany, I was shocked how much even cheapo clothes cost there compared to the states. In the States Levi's are nothing special. They're just standard jeans sold in lower end department stores with lots of other brands being viewed as more fashionable or premium. In Europe (at least when I lived there), there was a certain amount of fashion cache attached to them, which means they sell at a higher price.

The prices of most groceries are cheaper in continental Europe than in the States, especially for non-perishables and stuff like chocolate. So it's not all bad ;)
 
It's the "boots" theory in action.

Either you shop in Primark and get cheap crap that falls apart in a few months and feels uncomfortable while you're doing it, or you pay through the nose. There's no inbetween.
 
JDsmagik - where did you find that pic? Tried looking on abercrombie's website and didn't see any.
 
When it comes to clothes, hardly anything is made in the US, Canada or western Europe anymore. American Apparel is one of the few exceptions today that makes clothes domestically and they use that fact as a premium selling point. China, central America, Vietnam, Pakistan, Egypt, Ukraine--these are the countries where clothes that you buy are typically made today. Interestingly, it means that clothes bought in Europe can even come from the same factory as clothes bought in the US. Moreover, there are many products that are branded through separate companies and sold in different stores.
 
IT'S a NECRO-THREAD!

Get the flamethrowers!

anigif_enhanced-20045-1413903284-1.gif
 
I'm glad to shop at the thrift stores. You can get decent clothes cheap and if your lucky, already broken in and "worn" in all the right places. It is also much better for the environment to reuse someone else's designer vast offs, and all at a fraction of the price. The water needed to produce clothes is crazy and most new clothes are discarded after just one year, where there is years of life left in them.
 
When I was young, I was a clothes rack.

Then as I passed 30, I began to love the comfort of well used and worn in clothing.

At this stage, I am just about at the point where my idea of clothes is a pair of 10 year old sweat pants, a baggy sweatshirt, a pair of canvas topsiders and Stanfields boxer briefs.

Some of my sports jackets are now 30 years old and as we know, if you have them in all lapel styles in single breasted, you only need to wait as they come and go back in and out of fashion.

The other best advice? Hang onto your clothes as you fatten up. I am now fitting back into pants and jackets from when I was thinner and some of them are like new.
 
And the JUB problems are back too :(
 
12 years later the price is double :roll:
 
I saw a weathered pair of Nike at the mall with a price tag of $280. OMFG
 
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