Blowout at Brooks Brothers
Max Pierce, the dtowntown Los Angeles store manager
You can tell that Wall Street has been pretty badly hit by the economy when Brooks Brothers decides to hold its very first warehouse sale in its downtown Los Angeles store.
Los Angeles isn’t the only location for this button-downed blowout. The venerated retailer is holding simultaneous six-day sales in downtown Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta after a warehouse sale this spring at its New York flagship store on Madison Avenue was a smashing success.
Max Pierce, the manager for the store at 604 S. Figueroa St., said customer turnout has been pretty steady since the doors opened on Monday, Aug. 17, at 9 a.m. However, the turnout hasn’t quite measured up yet to Brooks Brothers’ traditional Father’s Day and holiday sales crowd.
Suits, trousers and sport coats are 50 percent to 70 percent off if you don’t mind last year’s merchandise because everything is from Spring ’08 and Fall ’08. There might be a few bits and pieces thrown in from Spring ’09. “We’ve gotten some strange questions about the sale,” Pierce noted “No, the merchandise isn’t worn, and it is not resale items.”
There is a good selection of suits, some once priced at $1,600, now selling for $600. Sports coats that once went for $700 are fetching $200. You can buy two pairs of gabardine trousers for $199.
All the clothing that doesn’t sell at the three warehouse sales around the country that end Aug. 22 will be rounded up and packaged into another warehouse sale at the Madison Avenue flagship, not too far from Wall Street, where this whole recession mess began.
