The Sad Truth about Steve and Barry's

A few months ago, I was stoked about Steve and Barry's, a new chain of collegiate-style department stores quickly expanding to mid-level malls throughout the nation. S&B's appeal is their prices: jeans are 2 for $20, polo shirts 2 for $15...the prices are lower than even Target.

A few moderate celebrities have even signed on (with altruistic intentions) to promote "fashion at a price everyone can afford". New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury has a signature shoe collection (Starburys) that cost only $15 a pair. Sarah Jessica Parker launched a line of hundreds of pieces called "Bitten", with nothing in it costing more than $20. A few weeks ago, Amanda Bynes (the girl with the pigtails from "Hairspray") launched a line called Dear targeted at teens.

From this description, Steve and Barry's probably sounds awesome. I thought so too. I think the clothing industry is ridiculous. It's just too easy to drop a fortune on clothing, especially in a mall. For younger people, it's easy to blow an entire paycheck on a single outfit. It truly seemed like someone was finally creating a remedy for this situation.

So what's the big problem with Steve and Barry's? Well, their clothing is just not made well. It falls apart. The other day, I found myself wearing an entire outfit made of Steve and Barry's clothing I purchased only a little over a month ago. My shirt had lost half of it's buttons, my shorts were ripping and my Starbury shoes were falling apart. I've NEVER had clothes fall apart on me like that, and my lifestyle is more sedate than ever.

So, I went home and audited my other apparel from S&B. Not surprisingly, almost every piece of apparel I purchased from them was in some stage of deterioration.

I guess once again, it goes to prove that you just cannot expect to get something for next to nothing. It's just a shame Steve and Barry's doesn't produce well-made inexpensive clothing.

Two Things

1) Oreo Cakesters may be the best desert invention ever.

2) Avery (the company that makes all sorts of printable labels) offers a free Microsoft Word wizard for producing labels if you buy one of their packs of labels. This file is 26 megabytes. Why? Does anyone remember the days of 3.5" floppies? Well, a modern label generation script for Word would take up like nineteen of them. If I recall correctly, even Windows 95 didn't even span that much. Bloatware? Sometimes I think software companies take the ubiquitousness of broadband connections as an unspoken approval that lazy programming is okay.