This week, the New York Times posted a story on the struggles of Jake, a well-respected mens and womens clothing retailer in Chicago. I wasn’t suprised to read what I did, as this specific problem has plagued boutiques and independant designers for a long time. The downturn of our economy has only served to highlight the unfortunate situation more, but it’s always been around.

I happened across a thread discussing Jake’s situation on StyleForum, an internet discussion board that I frequent. While most of the posters were simply judging the situation from a strict economic standpoint, calling the designers foolish for continuing to ship product when they were already owed money,  I can empathize with the predicament that independant designers face – on one hand you need to get paid for your orders or else you might be out of business next season, and on the other hand you want to have your product in the best stores and are often willing to make concessions to get your line in them. And this brings us back to the unfortunate situation I was mentioning earlier: boutiques will always want as much product as possible without paying for it, and designers will always tempted by the opportunity to put their clothing in great doors (at the risk of getting paid late or not at all). Because I don’t have a background in retail, my perspective is limited but it strikes me as dishonest for a store to bring in product without knowing if they can pay for it – or even worse, knowing that they can’t pay for it. I can, however, speak from a designer’s standpoint. Wisdom and caution must definitely be exhibited when shipping stores (especially ones that are carrying an outstanding balance), but I do understand why those brands continued to send product over in the hopes that they’ll get paid eventually. Sadly, I dont think this is a situation that will ever be remedied; there will always be plenty of young, hungry brands for stores to serially take advantage of.