Ralph Lauren on Sale and at the Ashford Outlet in Kent.

It was 4 years ago when I first went to the Ralph Lauren outlet shop in Ashford Kent.  I got a couple of great bargains, although wasn't impressed with the rest of the shop at that time.  I thought being an "outlet" it was probably very hit and miss with its stock levels and what it had to offer the customer, maybe sometimes they had good kids stuff, a week later good women's, that kind of thing.  On that particular trip I scored a Navy Puffa Jacket with a retail value of £100 for only £20 and a pair of jeans for just £7.  Both of these items were for Charlie and I noticed exactly the same puffa jacket, weeks later in our local childrens designer shop, but with a hood for £120, whereas the one I had bought had a thin concealed hood but it was a great jacket and really warm and stayed in immaculate condition for the two years that it fitted (it was a size S, 8-10, bought when Charlie was age 7 and we had to wait a year for it to fit him!).

Fast forward to January 2012 and the boy is all about the clothes and he and some friends wanted to go to the Ralph shop with their Christmas money.  Again I found the rest of the Outlet (if you are thinking of going) a load of rubbish.  Seriously guys you can get stuff cheaper in the actual sales, it feels like a bit of a con in some of the shops to be perfectly honest.  Obviously I have no idea how this compares to Bicester where every Blogger I know seems to get some fab bargains, or Braintree in Essex which I have heard is good.  Anyway, this year I wasn't impressed with the price or the stock at all (maybe they are taking advantage of its popularity with their price points now), but the boys were desperate for a Ralph polo top of some description, despite the price and as much as I tried to talk them out of it, convincing them that the actual sale on the Ralph website would be better, all four boys bought a top.  You can see Charlies in my previous post here.  He paid £45 for it out of his own Christmas money. Sure its nice and I do love him in white tops and had it have been a bit cheaper, then fair enough.  The rest of the stock was rubbish, there were about 4 t-shirts that were in his size but no jeans, trousers or accessories such as belts, which we were looking for.

Fast Forward again to this summer (chokes as I type the word beginning with S, it is now almost a swear word in this house and also among most of the population of Great Britain) and I decided to give the Ashford Outlet a miss.  I'm sure if you are local and can call in on days when they get their deliveries, its fine, but I decided to stick with online shopping this time round.  John Lewis had some RL polo shirts in great colours with good reductions but they were all in smaller sizes (all RL now sold out) so I went directly to the Ralph Lauren website where we fared much better, with so much more choice and better reductions.  Charlie chose his own tops, I said he could have two and although my picks may have been slightly different, at his age it is only fair to let him have a say!

I paid £70 for two tops, and one was only £25.  The downside of this was that it was ordered in yellow (it has always been Charlie's favourite colour) but came in green. I gave him the option to return it but he said it was fine and that he would keep it. The other top was £45.  Both still available in various sizes.

If you haven't bought from Ralph Lauren before then a quick guide to sizing as I find the website size chart completely wrong. Charlie is just growing out of a medium which is labelled a M 10-12 and he is a large 11 1/2 year old. 

Custom fit tops are slimmer cut than classic fit. So the top on the left is smaller in size than the top on the right (above picture).  I do find their tops fit for around two years, usually a bit big when they first start to wear them, but if you look after them and only wear for best, they will last and you will get your money's worth as opposed to buying tops of a lesser quality. 

Have you ever been to a Ralph Lauren outlet?  I'd be interested to know how you found it compared to the sales on their website.