A visit to Gentlemen's resale consignment store

Gentleman’s resale is a consignment store in Manhattan that sells second-hand menswear, mainly formalwear. The way it works is someone looking to part ways with an old garment consigns it to the store and a price is set. After thirty days if it hasn’t sold the price drops by twenty percent, after sixty if it still hasn’t sold the price drops fifty percent. After ninety days any unsold items are returned to the consigner. All items are carefully tagged with a price. The price reflects the original price assigned to a given merchandise by the consignment shop. These tags are color coded to reflect the month they went on sale. Instead of retagging everything after thirty days and sixty days they keep the same tags but those items then go on sale. On the wall you will find prominently displayed a scheme indicating which colors on are on sale. For example, it might say that green is twenty percent off and pink fifty percent off. This means that that the merchandise with green tags went on sale the previous month while the merchandise with pink tags went on sale two months ago. When perusing the store pay attention to the color of the labels in order to get the best deals.

Overall items were in good condition reflecting the fact the items consigned are likely vetted. Inspecting the shirts specifically revealed no visible damage or missing buttons. The only mending required is that some of the shirts were missing collar stays that had fallen out. This is something that can easily be addressed though. None of the menswear appeared to be monogrammed. It would appear consignment shops tend to avoid carrying monogrammed products since they are less versatile given that some consumers may have a preference against wearing someone else’s monogram. If you are someone who consigns clothes, it may be wise to avoid monograms so as not to reduce your ability to resell them. The shirts are worth trying on since the sizing is not entirely accurate. This is a function of both alterations made and the shrinkage that occurs. The sleeves may be shorter than the listed length, presumably reflecting it being taken in. For collars, you need half an inch wider than your regular size since they may have shrunk. One limitation here is that the changing rooms do not provide much privacy. There are three changing rooms but one is used as storage so only two are available. The narrow fixed louvered doors only cover the bottom half of one’s torso providing woefully inadequate privacy when changing. For those not comfortable with this, you can either bring a measuring tape with you to measure the apparel instead of trying it on or opt for dress shirts with a half inch wider collar and assume will either be fine or you can adjust them if need be.

Unlike retail stores, consignment shops do not offer a curated in-store experience. It’s very much self-service. This no doubt helps keep the prices down. It is a very different from the customer standpoint though. A larger number of clothing items are packed on racks rather than being laid out in order to be visually accessible. You need to sort through the items hanging on the racks one by one to get a full picture of what they look like as well to check the tags and sizing. Given the variation in shirt patterns, you can kind of glean from the side profile view. With suits and pants this is not possible though since so many of the suits are plain navy or black and so the side view on the rack does not provide any meaningful insights. Shopping at a consignment store can be more time consuming than a retail store when everything is laid out for you and there is a retail clerk on hand to assist and even bring your size to you. Two other areas of diminished curation are sizing and brand. At a department store selling multiple brands, each brand would be distinctly organized into a separate section making it easy to navigate by brand. While at a brand store or boutique you may only find one brand’s products. Whereas at a consignment store a large number of brands will be meshed together on the same rack. If you are attempting to filter by a particular brand you will need to sort through each item. In terms of sizing, clothing is grouped by general sizing categories such as small, medium, large etc. rather than the individual gradations of inches. Once you identify your sizing category you will need to sort through them to find your specific size. It should also be noted unlike a retail store they will typically only have one size for a given garment which means what if you find something you like but it’s not in your size you are out of luck since there inventory if a function of what their consigners have supplied them with rather than purchasing multiple sizes of the same shirt from a distributor. Another noteworthy difference is the absence of an online option. Given the amount of variety and frequent turnover of the inventory it is not worth the time to carefully catalogue everything on an ecommerce site and offer delivery, so you need to show up in person to see what’s available rather than ordering from the comfort of your couch. That being said, for those prepared to do the legwork the prices are far lower than they would be if you bought them in a retail store without the excess layers of plastic packaging or cardboard.

In terms of pricing, they seem to have a few tears for a given clothing item. Using shirts as an benchmark, prices are listed as $25, $35 or $40. How expensive a brand retails for seems to be the deciding factor in terms of which category they fall into. A Charles Tyrwhitt would be listed for $25, while a Thomas Pink for $35 and a Turnbull & Asser for $40. Your correspondent was surprised to find that Ralph Lauren was listed in the $40 category. As far as Turnbull & Asser is concerned, two shirts for sale were plain yellow and plain blue with double cuffs rather than the peacock patterns T&A is known for.

In terms of suits, there was a high degree of uniformity in the offering. If you are looking for a linen summer suit or something with pizzaz such as seersucker, this is not the place. On the other hand, if you need a black tuxedo this a great place to go and you can also find all the necessary accessories such as cummerbund, bowtie and tuxedo shirt. The suits very much fall in the business attire and office-appropriate category. Neutral, dark colors with no noticeable designs.

As far as accessories are concerned there was a very limited selection of hats which contrasted with the abundant selection of shirts, suits, pants and jackets. There was an impressive collection of neckties. At $40 some of the ties seemed a little overpriced given that people practically give ties away these days and ties often retail for much less than the equivalent dress shirts. Thus, to price dress shirts and ties at the same level seems off. One would expect a lower price for ties than for dress shirts. Pocket squares and handkerchiefs were also conspicuously absent likely reflecting the niche nature of their audience.

As far as store layout is concerned, coats and winter clothing seem to be near the front. In light of the warm weather, this would suggest that they do not change the store layout from season to season. This constitutes another distinction with retail stores where displays are adjusted very season. A fashion retailer would sell winter clothes in the fall and then discount them in January. A consignment store on the other hand will maintain similar merchandise year-round without additional discounts for off cycle purchases given that items are already substantially discounted.

A final though concerns how a designed brand can compete with the second-hand trend whether those are thrift stores or consignment stores. To win over the price conscious consumer and justify a higher price point fashion companies need to focus on where they have an inherent competitive edge over consignment stores. These are the convenience of a carefully curated in-person and online selection, offering ample sizing gradations that can cater to a customer’s exact size and investing in unique and differentiated pattern drafting and designs.