Wilson's Leather

Not quite in the tone of the rest of the blog, but wanted a space to "shout out", and what better place than my blog of random useless stuff?

Wilson's Leather had long been one of my favorite stores - great for not-too-expensive leather jackets and stuff, and lots of locations. Soma liked the purses from the store as well - and I liked the fact that we were buying purses from a leather manufacturer, and not a brand name that has little or no connection to leather. Or, for that matter, a very well reputed brand that did come up as a leather goods / upholstery store, right from the stagecoach days, but now sells a lot of their lower end products in nylon and cloth.

Anyway - we walk into the new Wilson's in the new Tanger that has opened close to us (Deer Park), and are shocked - what's 9 West, Kenneth Cole, etc doing as entire sections of the store? the store look more like a Sears in its cluttered interior?

We bought something that looked like a good deal, then noticed bad stitching all over the item, so wanted to return. Where, in today's competitive retail world, does it take 15 minutes and several handwritten / typed forms to perform a single return, for an item that has not even left the store since purchased? I'm not talking of waiting in line - it took us 15 minutes at the counter to complete the return. The salesperson kept pointing out how complicated that was, and she seemed to be the more experienced of the people working at the time.

Came home, a little disappointed and suspicious, and searched. Should have noticed the news earlier - apparently Wilson's sold its name, website and stores to a separate company back in July of last year:

"The Brooklyn Park-based retailer on Tuesday said it sold the Wilsons name, 116 outlet stores and its online retail assets to G-III Apparel Group Ltd. of New York for $22.3 million in cash. The fate of Wilsons' 100 remaining, mall-based stores and 14 airport stores remains unclear as the retailer moves to cut costs amid rapidly declining sales of its leather clothing and accessories."

(ref: http://www.startribune.com/business/24092414.html)