Its not the same company. The sporting goods store folded in the late 80s, and the name was bought by an ohio company a few years later, bringing about the current mall rat clothing chain. In the glory days the clothes were a sideshow to glorious, top 'o' the line sporting goods in unlimited variety.

Even the early days of the mall store werent terrible-it was expensive (the prices were unheard of for high school-kid clothes at the time) but the stuff was exceedingly well made (for mallwear) and some of it wasnt that bad looking. Thick chinos on the military pattern, thick, well constructed shetlands, old-skool details on some of the shirts, etc.  They did a decent imitation of an old-styled clothing shop as well-piles of stuff folded on dark wood tables and all that. with the exception of the creepy bruce weber gay/hitler youth chic....

I think i mentioned on another thread that im still wearing some of my khakis and shirts from high school into the ditch after almost 15 years, whereas the average field lifespan of carhartt work clothes is under a year, if that. I briefly worked there in the winter of '03 (i was a student and trying to get health insurance) and that was the exact moment it became a shitpit- the new ship0ments we were unloading were all warped, thin, crap quality cloth, etc. i quit when i was ordered to wear flipflop sandals in january.

yeah, i was kind of surprised to hear that they became a big cashie label in britain. while the quality was okay still at the time, it was never on par with high end italian sportswear or anything, especially at an import price.

when the "preppy" thing got big again in the early 90s, them and eddie bauer were more or less neck to neck in popularity. somehow eddie bauer became the uncool "parent" brand and seems to be barely holding on, whereas AF can sell shit made of glued-together chinese dishrags and attract hordes of kids with daddys credit cards....