The Australian re-launch of Ben Sherman has been quite succesful. The short sleeved shirts are a big hit with the *wallpaper-wannabes" who wear them over cargo pants with $400 leather sandals. They have been doing heavy product placement with appearances in the wardrobe of neighbours, home and away and pacific drive.... The best thing the Australian made shermans have going for them is their high quality. They are selling for between AU$85 and $100 depending on where you get them from. The fabric is Italian %100 cotton in really nice checks or shot colours and the box pleat is fully stitched into the back unlike the old Australian Shermans that were poly/cotton business shirts. The buttons are slightly smaller than the english ones and have the ben sherman logo etched into them. The success is so great that you have to place orders at shops to get the popular colours in smaller sizes and the factory can't get enough of the italian fabric to satisfy demand. The girl's range is also a big hit with the shirts being shorter in length and fitted around the bust. I am yet to see the horrible shirt/skirt one piece dresses that some of the uk skinhead girls were wearing but they have also branched out into cutaway collars and french cuffs. The sleeves on the non-button down shirts are a little too generous for a modernist suit jacket which is a pity as they are quite nice. The big signal that the shirts are a hit here is that all of the cheap clothes stores have begun to put third collar buttons on all their checked shirts to try and ride the wave of popularity. One store has even begun importing button down shirts from the merc and selling them at $120 a pop (and strangely they sell... they are trying to kid everyone that the merc is a designer label from london?????) I still haven't been able to find an online stockist for the Australian Shermans for the people that saw mine when I was at the IOW but I have the details of the factory in Sydney if anyone wants to try and get them direct (I used to do this to get them cheaper and in non-standard colours but they are now onto this scam and only do single shirts at retail price...... bugger...). Perhaps they might even export to shops in the US if the local range has failed??? Ben Sherman (aust.) 60/62 Windham Street Alexandria NSW 2015 Australia phone 612 9319 4266 I used to deal with Virginia who was quite helpful... Marcus. Drew 17 wrote: > *Surprised to hear that the Shermans are carrying on here. From what I've > seen in the northeast, at least, the ballyhooed US launch flopped. The only > Boston source was plebe clubber shop Allston Beat which repeated promised me > that they had other sizes coming in, as I didn't want to wear ridiculously > huge flags of plaid material. Eventually I got impatient, but by that time > they were selling off their stock because it "hadn't worked." Now I hear > that the local Hot Topic (an 'alternative' Kmart)in my hometown has been > selling them off for something like $10 apiece. Those who recognized their > debatable quality apparently snatched them all up to sell on eBay. I think > what happened was that they made all the shirts too big, not predicting that > their biggest demographic was going to be skinheads anyway. _____________________________________________________________ Keep up with breaking news! Join our Hot Topics list. http://www.topica.com/lists/breakingnews/t/12
