Designer retail outlets – are they worth the schlep?

tea_lover

Bicester is like every circle of hell combined.

AylesburyDuck

tea_lover wrote: »

Bicester is like every circle of hell combined.

God yes, nods sagely.

Pollycat

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

It's perfect in this context

"a tedious or difficult journey" As most retail outlets are in the middle of nowhere I think it's a fair description.

Personally, I love Bicester and try and go a couple of time a year.

It's none of your business what people spend their money on, is it? What gives you the right to judge what other people do in their lives?

I disagree with the use of the word in that context. But maybe that's because the designer outlets' near me are neither 'tedious' nor 'difficult' journeys.

What gives me the right to comment?
It's a public forum, dear.

MysteryMe

Used to go to Bicester a few times a year but not recently, just got too full of tourists being coached in.

I like Clarks Outlet in Street. I travel down to the West Country a fair bit so pop in there, along with the Mulberry factory shop in Shepton Mallet. I've not been recently so hopefully they are still in business, but there is a small factory shop attached to the Drapers factory in Glastonbury. A lot of it is a bit old fashioned but I've picked up some nice sheepskin gloves and slippers.

I am trying to locate what was the Duo Boots and now Ted & Muffy (!!) factory shop. It's supposed to be near Frome, not sure if it exists or not.

[Deleted User]

margaretclare wrote: »

I saw the word 'schlep' in Germany and it was being used in the context of cars being towed away if parked in the wrong place. 'Auto werde schleppen sein' (car will removed be).

I believe it's also a word in Yiddish and derives from German. In that context it means 'long tiring journey'.

Well, all of Yiddish is really just an amalgamation of Hebrew and German.. but I believe this word ended up in English usage via German originally. It essentially means 'to drag'

The German - schleppen
Yiddish - shlepn

There's a lot of Yiddish words that get used within English, although more popular in American English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Yiddish_origin

chutzpah and nosh are ones that get used over here.

Designer villages.. a bit of a waste of time in the UK. It's all made for the outlets and still quiet overpriced IMO. The ones in the USA are pretty great though

Bicester is just horrible.

pollypenny

I've only tried one outlet place in the USA, the one near Princeton, NJ.

It took me ages to persuade OH to go there and what a disappointment! No cheaper than sales in Macy's.

As we were near, we popped into Cheshire Oaks on Monday. OH got some black jeans for £8.99 down from £35. They look great on him.

C_Mababejive

Whats "designer" anyway? A so called well known designer designs something and its made cheap in the far east but sold dear to westerners for huge profit just so that they can feel better/superior for having the right label?

The biggest joke is designer glasses. All made by the same el cheapo Chinese factory for a few quid but sold to suckers for a couple of hundred quid.

A lot of so called designer outlets are known to have stuff especially made just for that outlet,,cheap and cheerful,except for the markup.