Band of Outsiders Designer Scott Sternberg: ‘The Fashion Industry Is Retarded’

For the Apartmento‘s Fall/Winter 2013 Issue, Band of Outsiders designer Scott Sternberg opened up in more ways than one, following up a home tour with an on-record rant. The article isn’t available online, but FashionWeekDaily did the Internet the favor of posting some highlights. 

Sternberg reveals a profound sense of misanthropy: “I have 26 employees. I used to do everything myself. It was ten times easier and more enjoyable. Now I have to socialize with all these people and tell them what I want, which would be much easier to do myself.”

Then some remarks on how and why fashion is a warped industry: “The fashion industry is retarded. It doesn’t make sense. There is too much product out there and when you’re a wholesale business it’s really impossible to resolve. You can’t, because if you want to be in a store like Barneys, you can’t just deliver twice a year. You can’t just have two runway shows.” 

Maybe he was drunk? “There’s this layer in fashion in between me and the person buying the clothes, which is the buyers and the press. They’re this kind of hilarious community, this council of judges. They love a dog and pony show. They complain about it to no end.”

More thoughts about the all-pervasiveness of the dog and pony show: “With women’s, they pretty much spend half the year on the dog and pony show ‘cause they’re always looking at collections, we’re always presenting them. We present four times a year and they just sit there and they wait for us to show what we do. Even though with men’s, for example, there’s probably like three editors in the U.S. that like matter, you’re still doing this. You’re still having to go through this because the stores need to know that you did that show or that thing that the press are watching to have some feeling that there’s not so much risk involved with buying all this product from you.” [via Forums]


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