This is tenuously 'vintage', however, since outlet shopping has been a major thing since the late 1980s, we are heading into vintage complications with outlet tags... so its worth taking a look at this very interesting short video: http://www.racked.com/2016/6/1/1183...e-video#ooid=B3bGh2MzE6KtG-7z4ibQURVIX9yM9_G-
I wonder exactly when the deception began as early as the big box outlets first started popping up or a little later.
I found this to be so starting 8 years ago. We have a large outlet mall in my area which I will not shop at anymore. I actually asked at the Chicos outlet since since I Never saw these styles in their stores or on the website. Yes. the pieces were made only for the outlet and of lower quality.
Been going on quite awhile. Another thing folks do not realize is many estate auctions will have items brought in from other estate sales. I find this just as less than honest. --------- Gets back to old saying you get what you pay for in a way though. Knowledge is power.
The estate sale bit is well known around this area. Sometimes at least the price has been lowered from the original sale.
Thanks! This confirms what I've been hearing for the last 10 years at least. The outlet shopping phenomenon isn't quite as old in my part of the world as it is in the US and Canada. Dad and I went on our first US ski trip in '96 - that would have been when I first went to an outlet shopping mall, because there's one not too far from Breckenridge and we always looked in on there. At that time I thought it was great, but I remember even then the Levi's outlet sold stuff that definitely wasn't Levi's.... and it seemed over the years what Silverthorne had to offer didn't get better - it just got less interesting. Most interesting was in the end just the Western store there, because they had the Wrangler Cowboy Cut jeans...
I do remember my mother saying she had heard that much of the outlet inventory was specially made for the outlets, and she passed away in 1994. I also remember Monty getting a Brooks Bros sweater for Christmas, maybe 15 years ago, and when we took it in to the mall store to exchange for size, I was rather snootily told it was outlet, and they wouldn't deal with it at the mall store. I just hadn't put it together with what the outlet labels will mean for vintage resale.
There are a ton of 'outlet' malls especially around Niagara Falls, and 10-15 years ago they were all rebuilt into these very slick, shiny new malls carrying all the top brands: Gap, Kate Spade, Brooks Brothers, DKNY, Converse, Calvin Klein, American Eagle, Coach, Banana Republic, Guess, Michael Kors, Nine West, Polo Ralph Lauren, Adidas, Burberry, Tommy Hilfigger... it just didn't make sense to me because none of the stores looked like end of lines to me. I suspected they were all 'made in China' licensed copies, and I think that is exactly what they are.
