Disappointing Week

I don't really know where to start...the last couple weeks have just been awful, and to make it worse, I visited every store in Jersey last weekend, and they are all faring worse than Philly merchandise-wise.

For what it's worth, here's the run-down ---

Lots of shoes from Puma and Beverly Hills Polo Club. The Puma stuff was not terrible, the Polo Club stuff, not worth your time.

Down here in Philly, we got TONS of athletic apparel, mostly nylon sweat suits from New Balance, Avia, and Fila. The fact of the matter is that people don't come to Daffy's looking for this stuff, and simply that no one under the age of fifty wears nylon sweat suits. Just an awful waste of floor/rack space.

Jackets from U.S. Polo Assn. and Totes - more wastes of space. The Totes items are quite basic and not exactly the most stylish things, and U.S. Polo Assn. is not a brand I expect at Daffy's. These same items were in last Spring and were also sold at retailers like Pay Half and Tuesday Morning.

Along with a large assortment of candy (which I still can't understand to be honest), most of the locations are also now selling Calvin Klein suitcases. Not horrible things, but they seem overpriced to me. If I want luggage at a discount, I go to TJMaxx/Marshalls, not Daffy's. Now, Italian leather bags, that's a different story.

Probably the worst items of the week were these camp-style short-sleeve shirts from Axis. Axis, for those of you not in tune to the lower-end of the spectrum, is a brand sold at Kohl's and JC Penney. With all of these items mentioned already, and especially these shirts, I cannot fathom how they can sell this bottom of the barrel merchandise and at the same time sell fully-canvassed suits, and hand tailored shirts made in Italy. The two don't mix, and only serve to turn off customers and devalue the better merchandise.

The only highlights of the week, if you can call them that --- most of the Jersey stores got in a small selection of items from MINE (see pic for label); first time I've seen this stuff at Daffy's in a few years; a few shirts folded up in the wall areas marked SERICA (made in Italy), priced at $35.99 -- you wouldn't even know these things were there since they're just shoved in w/every other folded shirt, mostly the low-end stuff; and some scarves/shawls which have been in for a few weeks now that are made in Italy -- same manufacturer that made a lot of the winter scarves this past season --- really nice stuff if you need a lightweight accessory to your wardrobe (linen/cotton).

A number of the Jersey stores got in samples of suits/blazers from John Barrit. All of these were size 40US/50EU, and marked as samples w/season code H. Nice stuff, but nothing in my size.

Only other thing I noticed, only in Philly -- the items w/vendor code (search for 'vendor code' for a prior post to see what this refers to) CONF, which correlates to pieces from Confezioni Lombardelli which came in two weeks ago as samples, also included some blazers from Messagerie (made in Italy). Beautiful pieces, and I counted all of three in total, but apparently Lombardelli makes their blazers. None of this merchandise found its way to the Jersey stores, but I'm guessing a few locations in NYC got these items.

Here's hoping that this week will improve significantly. Though, I'm not holding my breath.