From Squalor to Baller

UPDATE: It’s true, unfortunately. Looks like Unionmade is set to close very soon.

This news affects all menswear enthusiasts, but especially those local to the Bay Area.

If you keep an eye on sales, you likely noticed the unprecedented ‘30% off everything’ sale at Unionmade last week. This dramatic price drop raised some eyebrows, and was followed up by an unfathomable ‘50% off everything, no exclusions’ sale that began last night. This latest price drop is probably more symbolic than anything else, as inventory is so thin and picked through that there isn’t much to find anyway (though it’s worth browsing through quickly – it won’t take long). All of this has everybody thinking the same thing – what’s going on over at Unionmade? Is this the end?

For the past ten years, Unionmade has been on the forefront of menswear and e-commerce. They’ve helped bring hundreds of small brands to into the menswear vernacular and given clothing nerds all over the world access to new products. Their online and physical store were always full of heavy-hitting brands like Alden and LVC, small brands like 18 East, and niche Japanese favorites like Kapital and TS(S). Even Antonio Ciongoli, the golden child of menswear, has said that Unionmade is his favorite store in the US (and it’s where he chose to do the west coast launch for 18 East).

In a time where it’s incredibly easy to compare prices across dozens of retailers, places like Unionmade felt a bit more special. A huge portion of the products on their shelves couldn’t be found anywhere else, either because they were the only retailer or because the product was designed exclusively for their store. This is certainly a leg up in the competitive world of e-commerce, but it seems that it may not have been enough.

I’ll post an update once I can confirm what’s going on with Unionmade, but I’m not optimistic. Even if this was just some sort of restructuring or rebranding, selling these products at such wild discounts isn’t something you do with brands that you plan on working with in the future. If Unionmade is indeed closing down, it would be a huge loss for the local and global menswear community.