Factory Outlets…..Reggello, Italy
A Story from The Vancouver Sun about Factory Outlet Shopping in Italy.
Steve Burgess, Weekend Post
Names like Armani, Valentino and Ferragamo have made Italy a land of fashion. They have rarely made it a land of bargains. There is, however, a secret place for those who want to save on the best.
Regular buses from Florence head southeast to a small Tuscan town with little to offer visitors: except a mall. There, not far from the nondescript village of Reggello, many of Europe’s top designer labels are assembled in Europe’s toniest factory-outlet centre. Savvy shoppers who know The Mall are reluctant to discuss it: No one wants competition for that last pair of Size 2 Dolce & Gabbana pumps. But are the deals really worth the trip? I set off in a rental car to find out.
The first thing I found out about The Mall is that it’s a good idea to get there in one of those buses. The driver probably knows where it is. Coming up from the south, I followed the signs to Reggello, only to discover that The Mall is in Reggello the same way Pearson Airport is in Toronto. How many endless S-curves can an Italian byway take without offering you a single clue as to where you’re headed? Follow my example and you may find out. Eventually, though, that mysterious winding road took me to the nearby hamlet of Leccio. And here was at least one benefit to getting lost: I had stumbled across the Dolce&Gabbana factory outlet.
About five minutes’ drive from the rest of the outlets, the D&G store is larger than the others. Sticker prices are said to be 50% to 60% off, with some tags carrying “30% off ” stamps indicating further discounts. That still doesn’t make the stuff cheap. A lacy black floor-length gown was marked down to ¤2,100: just under three grand Canadian at today’s rates. One pair of men’s designer jeans came in at a markdown price of ¤750; ¤65 (half-price) for a pair of toddler’s D&G denim shorts that would be hand-me-downs in a month. A frilly red satin party dress was priced to fly out the door at ¤2,550, while a fox stole would have you dodging paint from animal activists for a mere ¤2,997, or about $4,200 Canadian.
For much of the clientele, the bus from Florence was only the final leg of longer journeys. One shopper had come from Poland, while two South Africans made me feel better when they explained that they had initially ended up 50 km off track in a different town with the same street name.
A young Korean style hound excitedly showed me a prized purchase: a pair of white pants with an elaborately embroidered bird of paradise and tropical fruit. He’d paid ¤1,500. A Canadian male would need to factor in the cost of martial-arts lessons to fend off fashion critics at the hockey game. But I thought they were very nice.
The Korean group grabbed a taxi to the main shopping building, and I gratefully followed. There, looking rather incongruous in the lush Tuscan countryside, was the modern complex called The Mall. Individual outlets include Fendi, Pucci, Burberry, Yohji Yamamoto, Armani, Gucci, Valentino, Ermenegildo Zegna, Salvatore Ferragamo and many others. I rolled up my unworthy sleeves and dived in.
The results? Mixed. Discounts varied widely, ranging from impressive to the kind of sale prices you’d expect to find anywhere. As for selection, this is, after all, the stuff that didn’t sell. Many of the best prices are for factory seconds.
I found a lovely dark green Ferragamo suit: only six sizes too big. And I consider it damning that, as a fiend for Italian footwear, a man who falls in love with half the shop windows in Rome, I found almost nothing of interest here. There was a handsome pair of olive green shoes at Zegna: three sizes too small. Besides, they were going for ¤535 including a leather-lined shoebox. Who wants that at any price?
The deals have to be good to justify the trouble of getting there. By comparison, one of my favourite Roman shops, Empresa, has men’s and women’s stores on Via del Campo Marzio near the Pantheon, and a large half-price outlet shop literally steps away from both. No bus ride necessary.
Nonetheless, true shopping fanatics will probably find The Mall worth the trip, particularly if they are hunting big game. The Yves Saint Laurent outlet was fun, just to see the fantasies on display. A red satin ball gown with ruffles and a black sash looked ready for the arrival of Grace Kelly. The price? Forty-five hundred euros, but marked down from an original ¤12,000. Now that would be worth the bus ride. Hanging nearby was an even more expensive item, a black-and-white gown with elaborate handwork and a mix of fabrics, all of which drove the original asking price to more than ¤13,000. Now yours for an incredible ¤4,055. You’d be foolish not to grab it.
Sometimes The Mall can even be a graveyard of lost loves. The previous year, at Emporio Armani’s Sorrento store, I had tried on an unusual jacket: a sort of taupe or silver-grey colour with muted yellow-gold striping. Sounds gaudy, but it wasn’t. What it was, however, was pricey: ¤580, or well over $800 Canadian at that year’s exchange rate. I had to let it go. Now, as I browsed through the Emporio Armani outlet shop, here it was again, like an old girlfriend at a high-school reunion. But while your high-school ex is likely to have gotten a little wider, this old flame had shrunk. The only one left was four sizes too small. Just as well: You can’t rekindle yesterday’s fires.
In the end, I escaped nearly unscathed, unsheathing my wallet only once to buy a couple of pairs of Armani jeans. Factory seconds with very minor defects, they were going for ¤40, down from about four times that price. Of course, to get the true price I’d have to factor in the gas and a portion of the car rental. And perhaps it would be wise to remember that the most beautiful guy in Florence is Michelangelo’s David. He’s wearing only a fig leaf.
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