Subject: Re: How the mighty can fall
When Abercrombie & Fitch gave up the ghost, I went to their liquidation auction. I ended up with a pair of high-end hiking boots and a diary with the back of a shotgun shell glued to the cover as decoration. The boots are gone, but I still have the notebook - maybe I'll note something in it some day :-)

Another local chain that comes to mind is Daffy Dan's which closed in 2012. They specialized in selling the marketing samples of European fashion houses - frequently at 10% of the suggested retail price, and frequently unique if the style wasn't contracted.

I do a fair amount of traveling around the world. I am saddened by the thought of being in a shopping mall and not being able to identify the country I'm in from its stores. Similarly, as there are no longer factories in the US to have surplus, "outlet malls" are now basically just another retail channel (I remember going to the Vanity Fair factory outlet in Reading, PA. when it was a massive compound of factories and all clothing offered started at 50% of retail price before layering additional discounts).

Fortunately, the less developed a country, the more fun it is to roam through their markets.

Jeff