FashBlog.com

Written by James Fohl

A few months ago, while I was on vacation visiting some family out in the Midwest states, I stumbled across a clothing retailer in a somewhat large mall that totally amazed me. It seemed that this store had just opened; the displays of clothing looked untouched, the floors were scratch less, and the whole store just had a warm, new, inviting smell to it.

I looked at the sign “Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear”, and quickly realized that I had never heard of this store before in my life. Next, after noticing the words university sportswear, I quickly came to the conclusion that this store was one of those stores where I could purchase a University of Tennessee t-shirt for some twenty odd dollars.

Good thing I actually looked around before leaving, because this store that I had never heard of before, this “Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear” store turned out to be, well to me anyways, the greatest clothing store ever.

It seems that the philosophy behind the Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear chain is the fact that they know a lot of college kids do not have a lot of excess cash to spend on clothing. Sure, some parents of college kids are rich and give their kids a lot of spending money, but in reality a lot of kids going to college today are sitting in their dorm rooms eating their fifteen cent ramen noodles, while wearing the free t-shirt they received on Community Tennis day.

How cheap was Steve and Barrys, you ask? I was really knocked onto the floor when I found out that everything in the store was $6.99 or cheaper. $6.99 meant everything; licensed college t-shirts, to blue jeans, dress pants, even shoes.

While I loaded my shopping cart full of seven dollar t-shirts, I wondered why the store was not jammed full of people. I mean come on, for a hundred dollars you could have enough clothes to last you a semester.

Then it hit me. Everything in the store was $6.99. I sure was getting a great deal on the t-shirts, but the blue jeans kind of felt liked rugged paper, and there was no way I was paying seven dollars for two pairs of generic boxers.

When it all came together, I saw how this store worked successfully. They did have a really nice selection of university t-shirts, and hats, but everything else in the store (blue jeans, etc) seemed like they belonged on the discount racks of other clothing retailers for a lot less than seven dollars.

I really had a fun time shopping at Steve and Barry’s University Sportswear. I whole heartily recommend that if you come across one of these retail outlets that you take a stop in. Just remember, even though it may sound too good to be true, the stores do deliver on their promise of everything being $6.99, the only problem is the fact that a lot of the stuff in these stores just is not worth $6.99.