Last week, The Row had a sample sale. I didn’t go. Sample sales are depressing; they trick you into buying stuff you don’t want. But I get it: Clothes are expensive. The Row, especially, is incredibly expensive. It’s also one of the most desirable fashion brands on the planet — even, according to an unscientific study conducted by me right this moment, the most desirable fashion brand on the planet. So the sale was bananas. People waited in line for hours (or hired line sitters, which, if you can afford a line sitter…) to buy $4,000 coats for $800 and $650 flip-flops for $150.
It was a very noisy moment for the quietest of quiet luxury houses. Of course, a brand of The Row’s size is going to have excess inventory piling up, even if sell-through rates are good. Just about every brand has some form of a backstock clearance sale, from Prada to COMME des GARÇONS. I remember Supreme had one back in 2009: I bought an Umbro Jersey and a pair of Irish-made Padmore & Barnes shoes from 2001. Sample sales aren’t inherently bad for brands, but they can expose a critical weakness in how a brand is perceived.
One reason why people love The Row so much is because it’s quiet — i.e. exclusive and not overexposed. Even if people are always talking about the brand, it’s not everywhere. The Row maintains a very specific image and produces a super high-quality product that reflects that image directly, flawlessly. This is what massively successful brands do: Supreme, Chrome Hearts, Rick Owens. The better they are at it, the more they begin to transcend fashion and become full-fledged cultural phenomena. These brands are air-tight. They are instantly recognizable and relentlessly committed to reproducing the brand ethos again and again in the form of products that make no compromise. Supreme sells a brick with the Supreme logo on it because the brand’s mantra has always been “fuck you.” Chrome Hearts makes a hand-carved plunger because it really believes it’s the shit. Rick Owens makes freaky shoes because Rick Owens is a freak who loves feet.
When brands like these get too good at what they do and become cultural phenomena, there will often be swift repercussions from the communities that feel entitled to their success. Or, there will be backlash from a gen pop audience that is suddenly becoming aware of said brands’ existence, without knowing anything about the relevant history. Supreme gets pigeonholed as a hype brand that takes advantage of teenager’s parent’s credit cards. Chrome Hearts becomes synonymous with fast, new money — the McMansion of artisanal apparel. And Rick Owens is labeled as a clout brand, versus that of a visionary, boundary-pushing designer.
Eventually, early adopters become early exiters, and brands are left to face the pressure of fame and commercial success without the support of the communities they built from scratch. We early enthusiasts abandon them in their time of need! And what did they do wrong? Become too popular? Attempt to make the most of their earned success? There are always questions surrounding a brand that grows too fast or sticks around too long — the quality has declined, the prices have gone up, it just isn’t cool anymore.
Some of those questions are valid, of course. Brands do get comfortable in their success. They do find ways to cut corners as they grow. Prices go up.
But, ironically, those of us who were into a brand early on are often too willing to kill it. As brands have become more important to our identities, we have become increasingly ruthless in our assessments, more impatient and eager to move on before it’s too late. We watch TikTok trends and stock prices, awaiting any sign of slippage so we can get out before anyone can accuse us of falling behind. But it happens in less insidious ways, too. Any of us who partake in the style arts understand how brands come and go in our personal rotations. We discover, we obsess, we normalize, we move on. We thrive on newness, which requires that we cycle through oldness. It’s a process of elimination.
For The Row, the sample sale could accelerate two scenarios. The first is that those who’ve been buying and wearing The Row for years will finally feel alienated by the hype — which, unfortunately, is mostly driven by people who don’t buy and wear The Row. The second is that The Row’s hater base has the opportunity to grow and use the sample sale as evidence to support their gripes: that the brand is too expensive, too basic, etc.
I think The Row will be just fine. I also think Supreme is still good. Sure, it’s been cooler than it is now — the ownership and acquisition saga hasn’t helped — but I still look to see what’s dropping on a Thursday morning. Old habits die hard.
