Jay Kos?

How is the quality of their items?

Originally Posted by Kuro

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How is the quality of their items?

Very high.

Originally Posted by Manton

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Very high.

Thanks. Hopefully they'll have a sale shortly.

they had a sample sale last year and i picked up some great cotton trousers for 25 bucks.

They do have nice quality, BUT:

1) sometimes their staff is dumber than rock. I bought a $500 hat there and they had no idea about hats. It was like a comedy watching them trying to steam the hat.

2) I ordered some pants there. Every high quality, but again the 3 Stooges staff. I prefer the Upper East store, the futher down is way snooty.

My advice is support Jay Kos, but just realize they aren't the satorial darling they pretend to be.

Originally Posted by erdavis

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They do have nice quality, BUT:

1) sometimes their staff is dumber than rock. I bought a $500 hat there and they had no idea about hats. It was like a comedy watching them trying to steam the hat.

2) I ordered some pants there. Every high quality, but again the 3 Stooges staff. I prefer the Upper East store, the futher down is way snooty.

My advice is support Jay Kos, but just realize they aren't the satorial darling they pretend to be.

What kind of hat? Those are Optimo's prices.

Originally Posted by erdavis

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I prefer the Upper East store, the futher down is way snooty.

There is only the "further down" store now -- i.e., 475 Park Avenue. The Upper East Side store closed a few years ago.

It was a Borsalino (not sure I spelled it right) straw hat. I really needed the hat, so I had to basically sell myself the hat. The store almost new nothing about the product. It was embarassing.

I had such a negative memory of buying the hat, that I gave to my Mexican gardener. Maybe he wil have happier memories with it. He gets more use out of it and makes him a bit more stylish.

Originally Posted by mr. magoo

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There is only the "further down" store now -- i.e., 475 Park Avenue. The Upper East Side store closed a few years ago.

I am soooo dated. Somewhere in there I moved in Seattle for 1 year, San Francisco for 2, and then onto Tokyo.

Time waits for no man. I miss the old neigborhood (that I can no longer afford to live in).

-erc

I like their selection, so I'll keep an eye out for the next sale. I was only doing some window shopping for some fall/winter pants and this and BG were the only two stores that I went into this past weekend where I didn't get the full court press. Retail must be suffering. Paul Stuart was absolutely ridiculous; polite, but so eager that my wife and I started laughing.

Originally Posted by Kuro

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I like their selection, so I'll keep an eye out for the next sale.

Sales at Jay Kos are extremely rare and not seasonal like at other stores. Just so you know.

Originally Posted by erdavis

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It was a Borsalino (not sure I spelled it right) straw hat. I really needed the hat, so I had to basically sell myself the hat. The store almost new nothing about the product. It was embarassing.

I had such a negative memory of buying the hat, that I gave to my Mexican gardener. Maybe he wil have happier memories with it. He gets more use out of it and makes him a bit more stylish.

Next time, you can give it to me.

The sales reps at Jay Kos seem disproportionately maligned. Yes, they can be snooty and ignorant. But this seems to be the case at a lot of high-end men's clothing stores in NYC. For example, Brooks on Madison can be just awful.

I wonder how much iGent dissonance over Jay Kos goes back to the Boyer event at one of Jay's stores a few years back. I don't know the exact details behind it, but Jay explained to me that a number of AAAC members were there who fancied themselves experts. They began scrutinizing Jay's merchandise for workmanship and criticized it. Annoyed (in retrospect, one wonders who wouldn't be), Jay compared his stuff to the things the AAAC members were themselves wearing. The AAAC members were offended, and since then, Jay has been known for insulting what people wear into his store.

For his part, I think Jay is still at least somewhat paranoid about AAAC-types coming into his store (people he thinks are fixated on clothes but don't have style). So, if you ask him something like, "Who made this?," he is not unlikely to respond: "Why does it matter? It is what it is; the quality should be self-evident."

Anyway, just my two cents. Also, I should disclaim: I had an issue with Jay over an undelivered belt that I made very public on AAAC that has since been resolved, but Jay's reputation on AAAC for being an arrogant snob had already been established by then.

Originally Posted by mafoofan

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The sales reps at Jay Kos seem disproportionately maligned. Yes, they can be snooty and ignorant. But this seems to be the case at a lot of high-end men's clothing stores in NYC. For example, Brooks on Madison can be just awful.

I wonder how much iGent dissonance over Jay Kos goes back to the Boyer event at one of Jay's stores a few years back. I don't know the exact details behind it, but Jay explained to me that a number of AAAC members were there who fancied themselves experts. They began scrutinizing Jay's merchandise for workmanship and criticized it. Annoyed (in retrospect, one wonders who wouldn't be), Jay compared his stuff to the things the AAAC members were themselves wearing. The AAAC members were offended, and since then, Jay has been known for insulting what people wear into his store.

For his part, I think Jay is still at least somewhat paranoid about AAAC-types coming into his store (people he thinks are fixated on clothes but don't have style). So, if you ask him something like, "Who made this?," he is not unlikely to respond: "Why does it matter? It is what it is; the quality should be self-evident."

Anyway, just my two cents. Also, I should disclaim: I had an issue with Jay over an undelivered belt that I made very public on AAAC that has since been resolved, but Jay's reputation on AAAC for being an arrogant snob had already been established by then.

I was at two such Boyer book parties at Kos (not arranged by AAAC in any way, BTW), and I don't remember any of this. Maybe I was out of earshot.

Originally Posted by Manton

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I was at two such Boyer book parties at Kos (not arranged by AAAC in any way, BTW), and I don't remember any of this. Maybe I was out of earshot.

Like I said, it's just Jay's side of the story. I know the event(s) were not AAAC-arranged, but supposedly there were a number of AAAC members there. Regardless who caused or did what, there's clearly a history.