{"id":1839,"date":"2025-02-09T19:17:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T19:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:40:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:40:46","slug":"designer-duds-at-everyday-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/designer-duds-at-everyday-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Designer Duds at Everyday Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

“You look like a 43 or 44,” said Abdul, giving me the once-over and reaching for a worn cloth tape measure draped around his neck. “Maybe a 44 athletic,” he mused, making a few quick measurements. “Yep, 44 athletic, short. You want the blue-tagged suits over there.”<\/p>

Abdul pointed toward the middle of a sea of suits. Neat ranks of gray, black, brown, and blue filled the floor in long racks that stacked up double-high around the walls. I was standing in the second floor men’s department of the original SYMS, a battered old brick building behind Trinity Church in Manhattan’s Financial District, buying my first new suit in nearly a decade.<\/p>

The cornucopia of clothing around me was divided into sections by colored signs indicating size and build. The tags dangling from the sleeves were color-coded to match the sections. I found the blue tags and proceeded to browse.<\/p>

The array of options available in my oddball size alone made for an impressive list: stylish suits by Kenneth Cole, Calvin Klein, and Monsieur by Givenchy for $299 (marked down from $450), outfits designed by Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren for $259 (in most stores, they’d fetch\u00a0 <\/span>$425), and a chichi $399 Hugo Boss that’s nationally advertised at $650.<\/p>

Even better, there were selections from Oleg Cassini, Ungaro, and Nautica that normally go for $325 to $350\u2014all priced at $199\u2014and Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass numbers ringing in at a mere $179 (slashed from $325). I slipped on the jackets of ten or so, then carried my three favorites back into the dressing room to try on the pants.<\/p>

I was standing before the fitting mirrors, trying my best to look sharp in a Kenneth Cole, when Abdul came over to gently burst my bubble. “Those pants don’t suit you.” He said, taking my shoulders to turn me sideways so I could see how unflattering they were, particularly in the back. “See: they’re baggy in the front and just hang loose off your backside.”<\/p>

Abdul sent me back to try on my other selections, nixing the next suit as well. “It’s got to be tight in the right places,” he said, “but still be loose so you can move around.” I came out in my last suit, a light wool Stanley Blacker three-piece in charcoal gray with threads of light gray and blue running in an almost invisible windowpane pattern.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

“Ah,” said Abdul, hitching up the pants and folding under the cuffs. “Now, my friend, you look like a race car.” He quickly chalked off the cuffs and the left sleeve for their in-house tailor to make some simple alterations. “And it was you who picked the suit. You’ve got a good eye,” he said matter-of-factly. “They’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”<\/p>

Flattery aside, I did notice that Abdul had actually advised me to buy the least expensive of my choices. In fact, the one he dismissed most quickly was that $399 Hugo Boss. Instead, my new three-piece suit ended up costing me just $211.24, tax and alteration fees included.<\/p>

That simple fact speaks volumes about the kind of retailer SYMS is. They’re not as interested in making a sale as they are in cultivating a customer.<\/p>

The SYMS Setup<\/b><\/p>

“‘An educated consumer is our best customer.’ That\u2019s our tagline,” said SYMS spokeswoman Margaret Collard. That attitude extends from the way the employees treat customers to the Syms.com Web site’s “Guide to your first interview,” a feature aimed at college students beginning the job hunt.<\/p>

Ironically, staying loyal to its old-fashioned brand of helpful-yet-honest customer service is what increasingly helps set SYMS apart in the ever more callous corporate world of contemporary retailing.<\/p>

In fact, the SYMS experience seems to have changed little since Sy Syms opened that first store in 1959. The only major alteration came after 1978, when Syms’ daughter Marcy joined the company, grew the chain from six stores in the northeast to 35 locations in 16 states, and, more important, expanded the offerings from men’s suits to clothing for the whole family.<\/p>

Mixed News for Women and Children\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>

I prefer how SYMS arranges everything by size\u2014allowing me to peruse all my options in one place\u2014to the typical department store model, which forces me to schlep around a dozen designer’s mini boutiques just to get a sense of what’s available. Then again, I’m a guy, so for me a 44 is pretty much always a 44.<\/p>

The SYMS’ size-by-size display can be frustrating when it comes to the notoriously capricious sizing of women’s clothing, where one designer’s size 8 is another, crueler, designer’s size 14.<\/p>

Say you find the perfect pair of pants in what you assume is your size only to discover in the dressing room they’re too roomy. Now you have to head to the section for the next size down and hunt through the kaleidoscope of clothes for the exact same pants.<\/p>

That said, your chances of finding something that does fit are pretty good. One thing SYMS does extremely well is cater to many shapes and sizes. Men’s jacket sizes range from 36 to 48+, with quite large selections of short and long, portly and athletic. Women’s clothing comes in misses\/regular and petite sizes from 4 to 20, juniors from 3\/4 to 15\/16, and women’s from 16W to 26W.<\/p>

When it comes to the level of service, however, the women’s department\u2014as well as children’s (lots of inexpensive baby outfits)\u2014doesn’t compare to that in the men’s section. There certainly are friendly salespeople hanging around, but they’re more there to give general help, not the kind of eagle-eyed expertise of the old-school clerks in men’s.<\/p>

That means the shopping experience in women’s and children’s is much more in line with that of a traditional discount store: you have to perform your own attire archaeology, digging for bargains in a mountain of clothing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Still, when you’re getting discounts of 40 to 50 percent, who minds going on a little self-service treasure hunt?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Bargains in Women’s Wear<\/b><\/p>

When my mother started a new job that required a new wardrobe, she went to SYMS and brought home an entire rack packed with clothes from Krizia, Liz Claiborne, Tahari, Anne Klein, Emma & James, Due per Due, and Calvin Klein.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The cost: $1,076, which sounded like a lot…until I learned she’d bought a total of five Italian suits, ten designer jackets and blouses, four skirts, two hats, and a scarf. In fact, the entire, fashion-forward stash cost barely more than just one of the suits would have at full price in a department store.<\/p>

The SYMS women’s department is packed with slashed-down prices on more than just business attire. I’ve seen designer jeans by Seven for All Mankind, Ralph Lauren, and Kenneth Cole\u2014not to mention Harv\u00e9 Bernard slacks\u2014going for $29.99 rather than the usual $55.<\/p>

You never know what gems you might turn up. Off one shelf I pulled a thick, hand-knit Irish wool sweater from Donegal priced at just $39.99\u2014half the price I’ve paid for sweaters in Ireland itself!<\/p>

Women also get to take advantage of a tiered pricing scheme called the “automatic markdown system.” In the women’s department, each tag has a starting price and date, followed by a series of dates 10, 20, and 30 days hence alongside a price that limbos increasingly lower.<\/p>

In other words, the longer a garment’s been hanging on the rack, the less you pay. It’s a bit of a clothing lottery, allowing you the option of waiting a few days to buy a particular item, wagering a potentially bigger discount against the possibility someone else will swoop in and buy it before the next markdown kicks in.<\/p>

BOX: Discounts & Details<\/b><\/p>

Though SYMS makes a big deal about how it never has “sales” since all items are discounted every day, it does practice something it calls “dividends.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For instance, in May of this year there was an all-month dividend on formal wear, bringing prices on tuxedos as low as $119, on women’s evening wear down to $79.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

There are also weekday dinner-hour dividends, typically from 6 to 7 pm, during which time the store’s loudspeakers crackle to life to let everyone know that, for example, all slacks, jeans, and dress pants will be discounted by an additional $5 to $10 if you take them to the register before the hour’s up. Another day, it might be $2 to $5 off dress shirts, blouses, and short-sleeve knits. Holidays and inclement weather can also occasions for impromptu dividends.<\/p>

If you intend to go on a shopping spree on the scale of my parents’, consider first signing up on-line for SYMS e-mail newsletter; you’ll get notices about exclusives, events, and dividends\u2014and, more important, a coupon for 10 percent off.<\/p>

In addition to general clothing for men, women, and children, SYMS has large sections devoted to shoes (dress, casual, and athletic), accessories (purses, perfumes, hats, gloves, scarves, belts), dress shirts, casual knits, underwear, and hosiery (good deals on that last one: Hanes and Jockey for $1.95, DKNY and Givenchy for $3.99).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

There’s also a limited selection of luggage, and a smattering of household items such as glassware, cutlery, towels, and bed linens and comforters.<\/p>

There are 35 SYMS in 16 states. Most are on the East Coast, but there are also stores in Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. For more information and store locations, contact 800-322-SYMS (7967) or www.syms.com.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Getting 40 to 60 percent off fashionable clothing is one thing, but throw in an expert sales staff, old-fashioned service, and more than 500 brand names and SYMS trumps overpriced department stores, hands down<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,80],"tags":[12,24,104],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-shopping","tag-article","tag-magazine","tag-shopping"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2341,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/2341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}