Steve & Barry's - New York Times to liquidation in 8 months (pics)

[c1ue]

Steve & Barry's is going down as we speak.

Remember a mere 8 months ago?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/fashion/01STEVE.html

"The Google of Fashion"

Now as I browsed through a mall yesterday:

(sorry, only had the wife's cell phone camera)

956

Highest priced item in store: 3 for $10

Lowest priced item in store: children's clothes 50 cents

954

The women's and children's clothes distribution area

955

Yes, people fighting over clothes being thrown to the crowd

958

The aftermath

957

The checkout line - notice the reused inventory boxes full of stuff

My own (well, my wife's) haul?

51 items, total $121 including tax

Among the loot: 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of men's jeans, 3 hoodies, 2 pairs of men's swim trunks, 4 sets of women's swimsuits (bikinis), 2 leather(like) women's bags, and the rest children's and women's clothing including wool/cashmere blend sweaters as well as various top, cargo pants, and what not. All pretty decent stuff - no 'cheap 3rd world nation' smell about them.

I tried to buy a wheeled metal clothes rack, but they were all already spoken for.

Sale at least in the Bay Area to go on until Friday

[zoog]

Nice report c1ue. Apparently they have a store here (in Vancouver, WA actually) but I'd never heard of them. Suppose that might be part of the problem.

[metalman]

Steve & Barry's is going down as we speak.

Remember a mere 8 months ago?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/fashion/01STEVE.html

"The Google of Fashion"

Now as I browsed through a mall yesterday:

(sorry, only had the wife's cell phone camera)

956

Highest priced item in store: 3 for $10

Lowest priced item in store: children's clothes 50 cents

954

The women's and children's clothes distribution area

955

Yes, people fighting over clothes being thrown to the crowd

958

The aftermath

957

The checkout line - notice the reused inventory boxes full of stuff

My own (well, my wife's) haul?

51 items, total $121 including tax

Among the loot: 1 pair of shoes, 1 pair of men's jeans, 3 hoodies, 2 pairs of men's swim trunks, 4 sets of women's swimsuits (bikinis), 2 leather(like) women's bags, and the rest children's and women's clothing including wool/cashmere blend sweaters as well as various top, cargo pants, and what not. All pretty decent stuff - no 'cheap 3rd world nation' smell about them.

I tried to buy a wheeled metal clothes rack, but they were all already spoken for.

Sale at least in the Bay Area to go on until Friday

who's next?

[c1ue]

I would vote Sears, but KMart may be holding them together. Or Sears might be enough to drag both down.

On the high end I'm looking in to see if Macy's, Neiman Marcus, or some other high end retailer is (more) vulnerable.

Gap is also a prime candidate for at least a large number of store closings.

A couple more pics from Steve and Barry's:

960

961

[babbittd]

You probably know this already, but Macy's is a bigtime issuer of in-store credit and Visa credit cards.

[Andreuccio]

who's next?

Maybe not next, but I heard a report on NPR yesterday about the future of advertising. Noah Adams mentioned that The New York Times itself was in serious trouble. (Since I'd never heard of Steve and Barry's, when I clicked on the link for this thread, that's what I thought it would be about.)

Here's a link to the audio:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99120537