FASHION | MANUFACTURING
Band of Outsiders Shuttering After 11 Years
Band of Outsiders, a well-regarded Los Angeles label that garnered a lot of attention from New York fashion magazines and high-end stores, is going out of business, according to various reports.
An unidentified salesperson at the company’s only U.S. store, located in New York, said the staff had heard they would be closing their doors at the end of June. The outpost at 70 Wooster St. in Soho opened in early September and was part of the company’s New York showroom. In mid-May, a seriously discounted sample sale was held.
Calls to the company’s Los Angeles offices were not returned, and emails sent to its New York sales representative bounced back.
Reports of the brand’s demise were first reported by Fashionista, which said the company had canceled all its Fall orders and dismissed the majority of its staff.
Signs of trouble for the label, founded in 2004 by former Hollywood talent agent Scott Sternberg, popped up last year when the company canceled its Fall 2014 show for New York Fashion Week, citing his occupation with opening the New York store. Then the Spring 2015 fashion show for the New York runway was canceled in February. A few months ago, Band of Outsiders’ men’s design director, Joseph Pickman, was hired by American Apparel to head its men’s design team.
Sternberg started Band of Outsiders as a line of men’s buttoned-down shirts and ties made of vintage fabric. He soon expanded the line into a full menswear collection with a twist on preppy classics with a European silhouette. In 2007, Band of Outsiders added womenswear to its lineup.
The brand’s understated and classy apparel was seen on various celebrities who were Sternberg’s friends from his Hollywood days. Sternberg himself would photograph each season’s collection on Polaroid 600 film, using a different celebrity to model the clothes at a different Los Angeles location.
Celebrities who participated included Kirsten Dunst, Josh Brolin, Amy Adams, Dave Franco, Marisa Tomei and Michelle Williams.
In 2008, Sternberg received the Swarovski award for new menswear designer of the year. The following year he tied with Calvin Klein’s Italo Zucchelli as the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s menswear designer of the year.
