Vulpine Clothing

Rapha's dickhead business moves

Please cite one.
The headphones issue is not a "business move", it's a product move.

Are you on drugs?

This is what's called an ad hominem, ladies and gents.

No, but thanks for asking. Are you?

But the kneejerk defensiveness over some of Rapha's dickhead business moves is exactly the thing I said I found befuddling. Great to have such a clear demonstration of precisely what I meant.

This is called projection. You're seeing what you want to see because of a preconception.

I hope i get there before another Rick & Morty fan...

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The headphones issue is not a "business move", it's a product move.

Whatever you call it, you're exploiting fanboys' gullibility for profit.

The fact is the Vulpine was always seen as a Rapha copy cat

Really, was it? I think Vulpine was targeting a different audience. Rapha is targeted at road riders (well, was, now it's a lifestyle brand). Vulpine seemed targeted at people with money who commute and use cycling as transport but who are less serious about cycling.

Rapha sells itself by glorifying road racing and everything around it and started out making nice jerseys, bibs etc. for road riders. Vulpine has never been in that market. As @h2o points out Swerve and probably others were making 'urban cycling attire' before Rapha was so they clearly didn't invent it.

This is all a red herring anyway as I don't think they went bust because they targeted the wrong demographic or were competing with Rapha...

Can we all take a moment to acknowledge that we're talking about premium brands here, and that premium pricing is the mother of all capitalist dick moves? Everything else is kinda in the weeds, don't you think?

glorifying road racing ... Vulpine has never been in that market

You have a very short memory.

I think that some of the "snobbery" is perhaps not, although it comes across like that. Frankly Rapha fan-bois weren't their target market so you can ignore the obvious ones anyway.

From my own perspective, as a long time customer of Vulpine and as the starter of this thread, what you are seeing is an annoyed customer base. I answered survey after survey for them over the years giving feedback along the lines of "Your inconsistency is infuriating."

Inconsistency in terms of quality, sizing, design and pricing. They were all over the shop with a small number of some truly excellent pieces with lots of sub-mediocre fillers that never lasted very long. I love every one of my Vulpine socks, jackets and gilets. They few jerseys I kept, and the bibs that were immediately returned, I had lots of issues with. Strange cuts, comfort, odd stitching, and really low quality stuff that didn't last more than a few months. With no reason to ever pay full price because I could just wait a week or two for the inevitable sale.

I literally only ever bought jackets from them and really, how many jackets do I need? Not enough to keep them in business if I only buy once every couple of years at discounts.

You live and die by your products and by your customer experience. That experience didn't change year on year. I would have loved to see any sign of improvement over the years but didn't. Clearly I'm not the only one who turned into a non-repeat customer based on the same experience.

Best of luck to their staff. Hope they all land on their feet.

You're right, I'd forgotten about that!

It's not very Rapha though is it? That lady almost looks like she's smiling and Hoy isn't skinny enough for a Rapha pic.

Also, I see no beards?

In colour too. Not enough pain face. Or bokeh.

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looks like she's smiling

Smiling, as to keep from crying at the suffering. Just needs a bit of monochrome action and it could be Rapha. Maybe under-developed early history Rapha (which is essentially Vulpine anyway).

Completely separately from the previous discussion, I would caution people against outright calling anyone at Vulpine liars etc because all this may go to court.

Think Aroogah's post is spot-on, also.

Too bleedin right it is!

More to the point, the deeper problem is that under UK law there'll be nothing stopping Mr Vulpine from starting up a new business under a different name. In much of Europe he'd be forbidden from doing so for the next 5 or so years - he would be 'black listed'.

This is what a lot of business owners do - take out massive loans, pay themselves a huge salary, run their business into the ground, fuck off with the remaining assets and the company order book, and start all over again.

[I am not saying that this is what Mr Vulpine has done. I have no opinion on what Mr Vulpine has done. The only complaint I had against Mr Vulpine is that he appeared to fancy himself a bit.]

This is what a lot of business owners do - take out massive loans, pay themselves a huge salary, run their business into the ground, fuck off with the remaining assets and the company order book, and start all over again.

That's capitalism, folks!

'limited liability'

In much of Europe he'd be forbidden from doing so for the next 5 or so years - he would be 'black listed'.

If someone is found guilty of wrongful trading then they can be personally held responsible for any of the company debts. If they are found guilty of fraudulent trading they can be banned from being a company director for a number of years.

Not exactly. If going bust was a more punitive process then small business owners would have more of an incentive to keep their companies solvent; they might pay themselves a more realistic salary and would probably provide a better service.

Yeah, that's it - thanks for detail.

I don't understand how any of this has anything to do with Rapha TBH?

you can thank @h2o for that detour

It's obviously their fault. Open your eyes, sheeple.

I see.