[Albion Wilde]

Ahh, the good old days when “outlet stores” were truly cheaper.

I remember that. Sweaters for the entire extended family for Christmas. Even K-Mart, S. Kleins and other discount department stores up until the 70s had great deals. There was a wonderful women's clothing outlet place in Hagerstown, MD called L'Aiglon that was a quickly slapped together building on a bare bulldozed lot with shower curtains over the cinder block fitting rooms. I got exquisitely well-made dresses there when I was still a "sample size"! Eventually that site has morphed into a massive, fully built-out Premium Outlet mall with the ususal suspects: Bass, Ann Taylor, Under Armor, North Face, etc.

These days, the only discount store I still go to expecting an actual discount is Ollie's. Even they have gotten expensive since the plandemic.

[moovova]

There's a chain of stores around here called Hamrick's. (NC, SC, GA, TN.) The wife loves them and can spend hours there. Predominately women's clothes, a smaller section of men's, a shoe section, some bric-a-brac, doodads, cosmetics and food items at the front of the store. A mix of name brand stuff plus unknown makers. Most things are discounted, some heavily. Big, nice stores but it has the feeling of the old time factory outlets. It's funny but, if we're heading south on I-85, we always stop at the Hamricks in Gaffney. There's a Tanger Outlets directly across the street from Hamrick's, but we never set foot on the Tanger property. Tanger is comparable to Premium Outlets...same thing, really.

Gotta say...L’Aiglon (Biberman Brothers, Inc.) had an interesting history. The owner committed suicide in 1933 because of financial difficulties during the Great Depression...but the store survived until 1975!