Outlets, where clothes go to die

It's kinda refreshing to see fashion reduced to its purest form: just stuff in a shop

Photo by Alexander Kovacs via Unsplash

It’s easy to forget that outlets exist. The sort of person who casually drops a few grand at Chanel every other weekend might never set foot in one, which is kind of the point — outlets need to be far out of town, so they don’t compete with the full-price shops, but still accessible enough so that people actually go there. Outside of Milan, there’s Fidenza. LA has one in Cabazon, New York has Woodbury Commons, and you’ll find La Vallée an hour outside of Paris. In the UK, it’s Bicester Village, a few hours north of London (it’s pronounced “Bister” btw, don’t ask me why).

Outlets sit under the radar, but they play a pretty vital role in the industry — they’re where brands of a certain size dump all their unsold clothes. And you don’t get to be a brand of a certain size — we’re talking hundreds of millions to billions in annual revenue — without making a lot of clothes. It’s yet another depressing sign of how waste is built into the way the industry works these days.

Here’s a quick bit from a piece I wrote last year on the completely messed-up economics behind Black Friday: 

Here’s how it goes: a brand designs a collection, filled with loads of really cool ideas that they want to make. Each of those ideas is essentially a bet. You have to gamble on the fact that people like your idea enough to buy it — first at full price, but if it’s not selling too well, you can always mark it down later in the season to make it more tempting.

Of course, brands make educated bets — they know that the cool but easy to wear jeans and shirts are going to sell better than the wacky knitwear or the leather jacket made of Japanese horsehide. But brands are also scared of not making enough stuff — because what happens if your cool shoes are a smash hit and you didn’t make enough of them? Sales season helps to make the gamble less dangerous, because when sale season comes around, they’ll have a chance to sell it again at a discount. The whole thing basically encourages brands to produce more than they know they can sell.

Outlets are what comes after the sales — yet another way for brands to get rid of the mountains and mountains of clothes they make. It’s not a good look to have stuff lying around in flagships for months and months at 50% off, so after the sales are done, you need to put it somewhere else.

Go to an outlet village like the one in Bicester and you’ll find the usual mainstream names — Ralph Lauren, The North Face, etc. etc. — but also high-end brands who like to pretend they’re too fancy for such things. Bicester has boutiques (their word, not mine) for Acne, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Celine, Dior, Gucci, Loewe, Off White, Saint Laurent and Thom Browne. Givenchy even has two — one for the mainline, one for the kids’ collection. Even brands that feel somewhat minimalist have outlets, like Jil Sander and Margiela, or relatively young startups like Ganni and AMI.