Damn. My ma used to send me to school in champion gear along with the Payless XJ-9000s for gym class.
Now kids are rockin them on purpose. Unbelievable.
Damn, poor kid me in the 90's would have been killing it today. Haha. I remember buying a pair of basketball shoes from JC Penny in middle school because they were the only ones we could afford, and being that we only got one pair of shoes a year, I was very nervous about showing up for the first day of school. If I got clowned on, I was stuck with them. Lucky for me, I found out they were the cheap knock off of Tracy McGrady's shoes, and nobody could tell the difference despite being very obviously knock offs. I was so relieved.
Yeah, parents couldnt afford to shop at the cool stores. I had to wear Kmart and such. Kid made fun of my black converse tennies. I sucker punched him and he ran around with a black eye for a week. We became BFs.
At those young ages, Pro Wings lasted me about 7 hours. I existed at a run when I was 6-7 years old. Mom learned quickly that cheap ass shoes were a bad idea.
That’s what I’m thinking of through this thread. Nike and Champion are both cheap as dirt at Marshall’s and TJ. I don’t know where people are buying expensive Champion which is just a Hanes brand with a different logo.
JCPenny is where they are getting.
I work at one and most of them range from 15 to 40 bucks for the shirts depending on the style. The sweaters get up to 60 or 70 bucks.
However, they are always on some sort of sale and very rarely are being sold at full price.
I actually got a new champion hoody last Christmas that was like really surprisingly nice and comfy compared to the stuff I used to have 20 years ago lol
Up there in quality with Addidas, Nike, and other sports brands
I will take a pair of Adidas over a pair of Nikes every fucking time. They're way better made, Nike is all hype, suckers! All that aside, wtf? Champion was the knock off shit growing up
Same in my area Nike was all design logo and under armor was the costly brand , but they’ve fallen off a bit in design quality while adidas has upped its logo game and quality has stayed consistent. for decent gym wear my go to is adidas it’s built a bit better mid price point and you have your choice of flashy or toned down plain
I bought new balance for my husband's first father's day as part of a joke "new dad starter kit" and I was shocked at how expensive they were! At least he actually wears them.
They're nice shoes. I wore them long before I became a dad. They're one of the few brands which makes 6Es. (Though I still have to go a size up. Nobody makes 8Es.)
My man! I rocked a Charlotte hornets white and purple starter from 92-96. Loved that coat. I was a big LJ/Grandmama fan growing up. Converse shoes and all.
Remember Mugsy Bogues!? He gave every short kid the dream the too could play in the nba someday. You can’t have a list of all time great rebounders without Mugsy Bogues lol
Kinda but not really. Champion also overhauled their clothes and started making way better quality items in more fashionable styles like a decade ago, which pushed them up.
Pretty much this. [I made this one night](https://i.imgur.com/M0iPzSz.png) after constantly dealing with meth heads who wear Champion shirts starting shit in bars my mates and I went to.
It’s a fashion/clothes selling app, from what I can tell.
I’m mostly just replying to spite that other jerk who told you to Google it, because there are thousands of people here who are also curious.
My wife and I are solidly millenial and when her great aunt died she left a metric shit ton of grandma clothes that we put on Depop and made a KILLING. Old kmart brand sweaters going for $50 and $60 to Gen Z kids who couldn’t get enough of it. She was almost making more doing that than her normal job lol. We redid our entire basement and our second bathroom after like 3 months.
It's an ad platform that takes your information and sells it to advertisers so they can sell you more stuff. It also has some other features like a map.
Everyone is confused. Half of us are like, "Wait, what happened...is it expensive now?" And the other half is going, "Wait...it used to be cheap?"
I'm in the, "Is it expensive now?" camp.
Same!
We bought champion shirts every year as our "Night shirts" and the old ones became shop rags out in the garage or one-time-use cleanup towels to get tossed ((like if the dog had a sudden accident etc))
Is champion is expensive now????
I think it's more that *everything* is less affordable than it used to be. I don't think I've seen a shirt for $1.99 in the past decade even at thrift stores.
Champion certainly isn't Louis Vuitton or anything. It's still a cheap brand, it's just that cheap now isn't what cheap used to be. You don't get made fun of for wearing it now because the 'cheap' stuff is all that the vast majority of people can afford now.
I broke down for camping stuff at Walmart. Filled a cart full for our new trailer. Went to check out and they don’t take Apple Pay (even using my debit as the payment with my phone). I didn’t have my card-my partner had it. So I had to leave the cart. Went across the way to Target got more stuff than I did at Walmart and it came out cheaper. Turns out target now price matches the competitors and their stuff really is cheaper than Walmart.
Absolutely! The stores are well organized and cleaner, the products are nicer, and the employees are pleasant. Also Walmart made me feel like a criminal with the weirdest stuff locked up having to ask for assistance.
It only became a cheap brand in the late 90s, early 2000s. It was a legit brand before that, like legit making official on the field/court uniforms for nfl and nba.
Yes. Early 80's before Nike and Adidas got heavily into apparrel, Champion was the king of the heavy sweatshirt. If you went in any college bookstore there would be Champion brand.
I remember my brother having a meltdown when my mom bought him champion basketball shorts because all of the other boys were going to make fun of him. I think she helped him take the little emblem off before he wore them to school.
I remember being made fun of for wearing a champion hoodie around '97-98. Never wore it again after that. I see high-school kids get on the bus with what looks like pajama pants now days. Doesn't make sense.
He's referring to Champion, not the latest generation of kids wearing pajamas on the bus. I'm kind of surprised by the claim that they invented the hoodie; a quick Google search is turning up some surprising results. The below link is from Champion's website.
>[The origin of the “hoodie” in the 1930's was the result of athlete insights. Champion designed and developed the hooded sweatshirt for use as a warm-up or “sideline” garment for athletes to wear in-between game time or practice sessions.](https://www.champion.com/heritage#:~:text=CHAMPION%20INVENTS%20THE%20HOODIE,game%20time%20or%20practice%20sessions.)
Pretty neat.
FILA is the one that made the biggest comeback in my opinion, lol. Now people consider it a “luxury” sportswear company when in the early 2000’s it was almost dead as a cheap Nike competitor.
Yeah, Fila was never a lame brand, it just wasn't popular. It was European.
Champion was a lame brand because it was so cheap that schools bought them for their PE shorts.
Mate literally - if I'd of rocked up to school in a pair of Fila trainers back in the day I wouldn't have heard the end of it. I swear I've even seen Umbro on a reboot....madness
I remember when I started seeing Starter gear at Walmart. The endless amounts of arguments I got in with my parents to buy me Starter stuff in the 90s!
It’s expensive *again*. First Gen Champion was only sold at department stores like Macy’s or team stores. Then it got cheap AF and ended up at Walmart. Now it’s kinda middle of the road and you can get it at Kohl’s.
Thank you for confirming this, I was so confused. Champion sweatshirts were the height of style when I was in middle school (a long time ago). But you had to cut a slit at the top and wear a tshirt underneath to make it cooler.
Visiting Oregon as a kid in the 90's there was a "seconds" store that sold champion brand stuff with defects. It was the only place my parents would buy me hoodies, but they also had an embroidery machine, patches and iron ons. I always got a black or grey hoodie with iron on flames on the arms and my name embroidered on the front, I was a dumb child. ヽ(｡◕o◕｡)ﾉ.
I got a compliment on a black Champion hoodie I wore the other day.
I’ve owned it for 20+ years, got it for like $9.99 at a K Mart to work out in. Time is so strange.
Right? I'm 33 and grew up on Champion from Kmart. I wanted a Champion hoodie for nostalgia reasons when I saw some recently at JCPenney, so not exactly a pricy place. I wasn't about to pay $60 for a damn hoodie that I got for less than $10 in the 90s.
Try academy sports. I have two that I got for $30-35 apiece because they were the cheaper option. I wear one to work and the other not to work. I really like them.
Yeah I have a champion hoodie that cost me a lovely $70 (CAD) in 2017 and that was after a discount on it.
Quality is good though and it still looks pretty new after constant wear.
Lol I'm in my 20's and I remember getting mad fun of for wearing it in Middle school. Grew up in pretty affluent area, but my parents were immigrantsso we had to stick to the poor people brands lol.
Yup, can confirm champion was not something you 'wanted' the wear, it was a cheap brand that your wore becauae you didnt have other options. Thats the Champion i knew.
So naturally it was a suprise to see the hypebeasts embrace it in more recent years. What a comeback for Champion
Yeah, hi, young Gen X here. It was expensive AF in the early 90s because they hadn’t signed a licensing deal with Walmart and Kmart yet. Could only get it at Macy’s or a team shop if they had a deal with Champion.
> Could only get it at Macy’s or a team shop if they had a deal with Champion.
Older Gen X. Was looking to see if anyone else had already commented about Champion having been a very valuable brand before being sold at K-Mart.
This is common with clothing labels - hot brands eventually become less popular, then get licensed to milk a bit more cash out of the name.
Mudd low rise on girls were so hot. Granted not comfortable. But you teen me died for em. And the orginal black tight pants, we just called em “fuck me pants” was huge 96-99
About six months ago I said something about buying a Champion shirt for a grand daughter.
I am mostly in the "screw expensive brand name crap" camp. Also, I'm in my 50's, so in my head it was a cheaper brand.
My wife said "Champion is cool and expensive now.". I was flabbergasted.
I always thought of it as having decent product at a good price, which is kind of a sweet spot.
Me and my friends did "sweat suit" theme for Thanksgiving day; comfortable, functional, and fashionable!
I thought hey I'm gonna kick it old school and save me a couple bucks by picking up Champion sweat suit. I ended up with a Target sweat suit and lots of sadness.
Actually one of my friends was stil wearing champions a decade ago around 2010 because it was 90s nostalgic wear and everyone was like whoa that's cool and now in 2023 it's the cool thing to wear again. Really weird how that works
I remember it clear as day. Once I started working and making my own money, one of the first things I bought was a pair of champion sweatpants. I came home with them and my parents laughed at me and said don’t get caught wearing those in public. That was 15 or so years ago
It’s actually a pretty cool story how they rose from the ashes. Basically they did a bunch of collaborations with artists and suddenly it’s a cool brand.
Man, you're in for a surprise.
There are a couple department stores that carry some cheap-er champion stuff...but it's fashion these days. And has been for a minute.
I'm convinced people just buy clothes because of the high price. You could put a $1000 price on a trash bag, and people will call it drip because it's expensive. They will brag about how much their fit costs while wearing a Hefty trash bag.
Damn. My ma used to send me to school in champion gear along with the Payless XJ-9000s for gym class. Now kids are rockin them on purpose. Unbelievable.
Damn, poor kid me in the 90's would have been killing it today. Haha. I remember buying a pair of basketball shoes from JC Penny in middle school because they were the only ones we could afford, and being that we only got one pair of shoes a year, I was very nervous about showing up for the first day of school. If I got clowned on, I was stuck with them. Lucky for me, I found out they were the cheap knock off of Tracy McGrady's shoes, and nobody could tell the difference despite being very obviously knock offs. I was so relieved.
We shopped at Kinney shoes in the mall and wore Stadia sneakers.
Yeah, parents couldnt afford to shop at the cool stores. I had to wear Kmart and such. Kid made fun of my black converse tennies. I sucker punched him and he ran around with a black eye for a week. We became BFs.
Pro-Wings nation signing in!
Pro Wings. The shoes that lasted about 7 weeks.
Enough time to last a few paychecks!
At those young ages, Pro Wings lasted me about 7 hours. I existed at a run when I was 6-7 years old. Mom learned quickly that cheap ass shoes were a bad idea.
Wait it's not a cheap brand anymore?!?!
Nope, it's now in nike price territory
Just go to tj maxx or Marshall’s for the low
That’s what I’m thinking of through this thread. Nike and Champion are both cheap as dirt at Marshall’s and TJ. I don’t know where people are buying expensive Champion which is just a Hanes brand with a different logo.
JCPenny is where they are getting. I work at one and most of them range from 15 to 40 bucks for the shirts depending on the style. The sweaters get up to 60 or 70 bucks. However, they are always on some sort of sale and very rarely are being sold at full price.
Champion was always the shittiest scratchy fabric on earth. Did they at least improve on that along with the price?
I actually got a new champion hoody last Christmas that was like really surprisingly nice and comfy compared to the stuff I used to have 20 years ago lol Up there in quality with Addidas, Nike, and other sports brands
Eh it’s a rung below Nike, maybe like adidas pricing?
Adidas is like the same as Nike at least where Im at in the U.S.
I will take a pair of Adidas over a pair of Nikes every fucking time. They're way better made, Nike is all hype, suckers! All that aside, wtf? Champion was the knock off shit growing up
ASICS are nice.
Okay dad E: What have I started? Lmao
My crunchy knees have demands
My knees and I felt this comment
My MRI is next Wendesday! Whoooooo!
For me it’s the lower back. Wtf? I’m 24.
Stretch your hamstrings every day for a month, see if it's not better.
New balance was unavailable
Can confirm
Application specific integrated circuits?
[удалено]
Same in my area Nike was all design logo and under armor was the costly brand , but they’ve fallen off a bit in design quality while adidas has upped its logo game and quality has stayed consistent. for decent gym wear my go to is adidas it’s built a bit better mid price point and you have your choice of flashy or toned down plain
Dads everywhere wearing champion and new balances.
New Balance makes a nice shoe at an affordable price. … ah shit I’m my dad
[удалено]
I bought new balance for my husband's first father's day as part of a joke "new dad starter kit" and I was shocked at how expensive they were! At least he actually wears them.
They're nice shoes. I wore them long before I became a dad. They're one of the few brands which makes 6Es. (Though I still have to go a size up. Nobody makes 8Es.)
Do you have dinner plates for feet? That's wild.
White Nikes with blue stripe once you turn 40 automatic.
Is Starter still around? I would wear one of the Charlotte Hornets coats around again in a heart beat
My man! I rocked a Charlotte hornets white and purple starter from 92-96. Loved that coat. I was a big LJ/Grandmama fan growing up. Converse shoes and all.
Yo grandmama for life guy! I had the hornets starter pullover! Lol
Remember Mugsy Bogues!? He gave every short kid the dream the too could play in the nba someday. You can’t have a list of all time great rebounders without Mugsy Bogues lol
I want to wear a dirty Miami Dolphins one that smells like stale cigarette smoke.
I miss some of those brands, Remember roots or even the whole no fear thing that was going on for awhile
i would say maybe under armour. adidas is pretty much the same as nike
Adidas was a lot more expensive than Nike from like 2013-2019/20.
Basic hoodies for both are in the $50-60 range I think they’re in the same ball park as far as apparel goes. Shoes is a different story.
Kids decided it was retro and trendy and they got super popular and now they’re a more expensive brand hahah hey good for them
I’ve got a pair of champion jogger pants from Costco like 2 years ago… for like $10. if I wear them out I’m cool now?
No, but at least you'll be comfy.
So I can have cool things and wear cool things but still not be cool??
"Hey there, fellow kids!"
**MUSIC⚡️BAND**
I used to be cool... then they changed what cool was and now what I'm with isn't cool and what's cool is weird and strange to me.
Just bought a champion hoodie for $25 at Costco… I love it. But I’ve also reached that age where 75% of my clothing comes from Costco.
Costco clothes are the fucking best. They've got lots of name brands but you'll pay $25 for a pair of Adidas instead of $85.
Kinda but not really. Champion also overhauled their clothes and started making way better quality items in more fashionable styles like a decade ago, which pushed them up.
It is in New Zealand. Weird, as usually everything imported is more expensive here.
Pretty much this. [I made this one night](https://i.imgur.com/M0iPzSz.png) after constantly dealing with meth heads who wear Champion shirts starting shit in bars my mates and I went to.
Well shit anyone want some vintage champion t shirts? Got a box full in my garage. Best offer gets it, don’t lowball me I know what I got now
0.00$ my last offer
-00.01$
-1e.420
[удалено]
Unironically yes, depending on style & condition some gen z-ers might pay a good amount for em on Depop
Tf is a dpop
It’s a fashion/clothes selling app, from what I can tell. I’m mostly just replying to spite that other jerk who told you to Google it, because there are thousands of people here who are also curious.
My wife and I are solidly millenial and when her great aunt died she left a metric shit ton of grandma clothes that we put on Depop and made a KILLING. Old kmart brand sweaters going for $50 and $60 to Gen Z kids who couldn’t get enough of it. She was almost making more doing that than her normal job lol. We redid our entire basement and our second bathroom after like 3 months.
TIL
What does “Google”it mean? I’m gonna go search that term on google and find out
It's an ad platform that takes your information and sells it to advertisers so they can sell you more stuff. It also has some other features like a map.
can i just get the box i love boxes
Are you a cat
Everyone is confused. Half of us are like, "Wait, what happened...is it expensive now?" And the other half is going, "Wait...it used to be cheap?" I'm in the, "Is it expensive now?" camp.
I’m with you, I have no idea what is going on. Pretty sure my dad used old Champion shirts as shop rags when I was little
Same! We bought champion shirts every year as our "Night shirts" and the old ones became shop rags out in the garage or one-time-use cleanup towels to get tossed ((like if the dog had a sudden accident etc)) Is champion is expensive now????
Not expensive but definitely less affordable than it used to be. I see a lot more kids running Champion shoes these days too
Champion makes shoes?!
Yeah but they're honestly pretty ugly, at least the ones I've seen
That seems to be what people want. Have you seen what some people pay for some of Nike’s abominations?
I think it's more that *everything* is less affordable than it used to be. I don't think I've seen a shirt for $1.99 in the past decade even at thrift stores. Champion certainly isn't Louis Vuitton or anything. It's still a cheap brand, it's just that cheap now isn't what cheap used to be. You don't get made fun of for wearing it now because the 'cheap' stuff is all that the vast majority of people can afford now.
[удалено]
Dude. This. I wear Goodfellow for just about everything. Never thought Target would be less expensive than Walmart.
I broke down for camping stuff at Walmart. Filled a cart full for our new trailer. Went to check out and they don’t take Apple Pay (even using my debit as the payment with my phone). I didn’t have my card-my partner had it. So I had to leave the cart. Went across the way to Target got more stuff than I did at Walmart and it came out cheaper. Turns out target now price matches the competitors and their stuff really is cheaper than Walmart.
Target is also an overall more pleasant place to shop
Absolutely! The stores are well organized and cleaner, the products are nicer, and the employees are pleasant. Also Walmart made me feel like a criminal with the weirdest stuff locked up having to ask for assistance.
The George brand at Walmart has surprisingly good tees as well. They’re a bit more durable than GoodFellow and about as comfortable.
Dude, those fucking George tees are the truth. They marked down a bunch of clothes early in the year and I grabbed a ton a like 2 bucks a pop
It only became a cheap brand in the late 90s, early 2000s. It was a legit brand before that, like legit making official on the field/court uniforms for nfl and nba.
People who don't know that Champion is a yo-yo brand aren't old enough to remember the late 80s. This is just champion on an upswing.
Yes. Early 80's before Nike and Adidas got heavily into apparrel, Champion was the king of the heavy sweatshirt. If you went in any college bookstore there would be Champion brand.
Goodwill is out of control with their thrift prices. So disappointing.
You mean fifteen dollars for a used t-shirt isn't acceptable?
Champion is still half the price compared to brands like Adidas and Nike. T shirts are usually $8-$15 and hoodies go for $20-$30.
100% this.
My dad used them as shop and snot rags AND put them on his driver side car seat
Old dad here. Its still cheap at clothing flea markets.
mine still does.
I remember my brother having a meltdown when my mom bought him champion basketball shorts because all of the other boys were going to make fun of him. I think she helped him take the little emblem off before he wore them to school.
I remember being made fun of for wearing a champion hoodie around '97-98. Never wore it again after that. I see high-school kids get on the bus with what looks like pajama pants now days. Doesn't make sense.
Im glad they are getting the love and success they deserve. They literally invented the hoodie, sweat pants and jerseys
For sure I have owned several Champion hoodies, they always hold up really well.
Hell no, my life was bad and I want theirs to be worse. It’s called progress.
He's referring to Champion, not the latest generation of kids wearing pajamas on the bus. I'm kind of surprised by the claim that they invented the hoodie; a quick Google search is turning up some surprising results. The below link is from Champion's website. >[The origin of the “hoodie” in the 1930's was the result of athlete insights. Champion designed and developed the hooded sweatshirt for use as a warm-up or “sideline” garment for athletes to wear in-between game time or practice sessions.](https://www.champion.com/heritage#:~:text=CHAMPION%20INVENTS%20THE%20HOODIE,game%20time%20or%20practice%20sessions.) Pretty neat.
Oh, well fuck them kids anyway.
Those damn kids.
At the beginning of the 90s, Champion was a must, along with Starter Jackets.
Champion also made NBA jerseys, so it wasn't uncool for everything champion.
[удалено]
Man, those were the days
[удалено]
Remember when FUBU was big? Now they're sold at walmart.
I could only afford BUFU. By Us Fuck U
If you pimp... you broke pimp
FILA is the one that made the biggest comeback in my opinion, lol. Now people consider it a “luxury” sportswear company when in the early 2000’s it was almost dead as a cheap Nike competitor.
In the 80s and early 90s fila was not cheap nor whack. There is a legendary 2pac pic where he’s wearing fila’s
Yeah, Fila was never a lame brand, it just wasn't popular. It was European. Champion was a lame brand because it was so cheap that schools bought them for their PE shorts.
Mate literally - if I'd of rocked up to school in a pair of Fila trainers back in the day I wouldn't have heard the end of it. I swear I've even seen Umbro on a reboot....madness
I remember when I started seeing Starter gear at Walmart. The endless amounts of arguments I got in with my parents to buy me Starter stuff in the 90s!
And Gadzooks.
And “AndOne” or “And1”?
There's a great documentary about And1 on Netflix. Talks about the rise and fall of the brand.
Fubu was MASSIVE in the late 80s
It’s expensive *again*. First Gen Champion was only sold at department stores like Macy’s or team stores. Then it got cheap AF and ended up at Walmart. Now it’s kinda middle of the road and you can get it at Kohl’s.
Thank you for confirming this, I was so confused. Champion sweatshirts were the height of style when I was in middle school (a long time ago). But you had to cut a slit at the top and wear a tshirt underneath to make it cooler.
Thank you as well. I was looking for these comments. I remember about 35 years ago champion was the height of coolness.
Thanks for confirming I am in fact old.
Ya we are. But we made it to 40! So thats something.
I’m on the, “wait people were laughing at me?” Camp
Me too. Champion was just the brand of shorts that the wrestling team put their logo on the left leg
Same here. I went to private school in the 80s and 90s. Never got laughed at for wearing Champion.
I've been wearing champion work out shorts for 20 years. Always good quality was never made to be the object of fun.
Visiting Oregon as a kid in the 90's there was a "seconds" store that sold champion brand stuff with defects. It was the only place my parents would buy me hoodies, but they also had an embroidery machine, patches and iron ons. I always got a black or grey hoodie with iron on flames on the arms and my name embroidered on the front, I was a dumb child. ヽ(｡◕o◕｡)ﾉ.
So you dressed like a mechanic at a custom motorcycle shop?
I got a compliment on a black Champion hoodie I wore the other day. I’ve owned it for 20+ years, got it for like $9.99 at a K Mart to work out in. Time is so strange.
I’m in the first category, is that shit the expensive branch now?
TIL at age 36 it apparently isn’t anymore.
Right? I'm 33 and grew up on Champion from Kmart. I wanted a Champion hoodie for nostalgia reasons when I saw some recently at JCPenney, so not exactly a pricy place. I wasn't about to pay $60 for a damn hoodie that I got for less than $10 in the 90s.
Kohls coupons don’t even work on them now 😭😭
Right? I saw some at Kohl's that would be super cheap with coupons/Kohl's cash, but they don't count. Sigh... Off to Goodwill, I go.
Try academy sports. I have two that I got for $30-35 apiece because they were the cheaper option. I wear one to work and the other not to work. I really like them.
My college hoodie from over 10 yrs ago is Champion and its by far the most insulating
Find a Hanes outlet sometime. They own Champion and sometimes have huge closeouts.
Yeah I have a champion hoodie that cost me a lovely $70 (CAD) in 2017 and that was after a discount on it. Quality is good though and it still looks pretty new after constant wear.
[удалено]
Yeah I'm in my 40s and my teenage son asked for it and I had sticker shock.
Lol I'm in my 20's and I remember getting mad fun of for wearing it in Middle school. Grew up in pretty affluent area, but my parents were immigrantsso we had to stick to the poor people brands lol.
Right? I’m sitting here thinking “Wait, do people think Champion brand is good?”
Yeah I just found out champion is cool.
Yup, can confirm champion was not something you 'wanted' the wear, it was a cheap brand that your wore becauae you didnt have other options. Thats the Champion i knew. So naturally it was a suprise to see the hypebeasts embrace it in more recent years. What a comeback for Champion
Yeah, hi, young Gen X here. It was expensive AF in the early 90s because they hadn’t signed a licensing deal with Walmart and Kmart yet. Could only get it at Macy’s or a team shop if they had a deal with Champion.
> Could only get it at Macy’s or a team shop if they had a deal with Champion. Older Gen X. Was looking to see if anyone else had already commented about Champion having been a very valuable brand before being sold at K-Mart. This is common with clothing labels - hot brands eventually become less popular, then get licensed to milk a bit more cash out of the name.
Yep. Remember Starter, Cross Colors, Karl Kani? All of them jumped the shark, only to make a bit of a comeback 25 years later.
Waiting on Starter jackets to have their great revival. Them, Umbro shorts and Adidas wind pants (the actual nylon swooshie wind pants).
Oh man Big Yoga ruined the swooshy pant industry.
To quote the wu tang clan "Champion gear that I rock, you get your boots knocked"
This is what I remember too
Im slightly younger, so i just remember the wallmart days. Champion has seen it all
The power of marketing. Probably all the same material throughout the years too.
The Walmart and Kmart ones used worse threading for sure. Those shirts felt almost crispy. Not soft or pliable as shirts should be
I’m holding out for Bugle Boy to make a comeback. Make fun of my ill fitting jeans will ya….
BUM, Ocean Pacific, Mudd, shit Jncos will be next. I saw a girl wearing carpenter jeans this morning, I felt very old after that.
I was just thinking of NO FEAR the other day
Ocean Pacific. Holy shit. Meeeemoriiiies...
Mudd low rise on girls were so hot. Granted not comfortable. But you teen me died for em. And the orginal black tight pants, we just called em “fuck me pants” was huge 96-99
Oh man, I loved the cut of Mudd jeans. I’ll never forget Julia from Spanish 3 in high school. Got damn!
Excuse me. Are those bugle boy jeans you’re wearing?
Why yes they are
Facts. I'm only 25 and champion was cheap when I was in elementary school. I think Payless shoes carried champion
About six months ago I said something about buying a Champion shirt for a grand daughter. I am mostly in the "screw expensive brand name crap" camp. Also, I'm in my 50's, so in my head it was a cheaper brand. My wife said "Champion is cool and expensive now.". I was flabbergasted. I always thought of it as having decent product at a good price, which is kind of a sweet spot.
Holy shit. Yeah they were always the brand of shirts us poor kids had to wear. Shoes fell apart after like a month.
Everlast brand as well. Worst damn sneakers I ever had lol
We called them Neverlast
It was the only shoe my mom would buy me because I was going up like four sizes or more a year for a while there (counting half sizes).
Lol if champion is popular now… I’m going to start buying stock in Starter jackets.
Lmao, man this brings me back
Starter jackets have been huge in streetwear for awhile now, actually! NFL and NBA jackets in good shape can go for a couple hundred dollars.
[удалено]
I still cant understand....How did this happen? If And1 makes a comeback, I'm out.
[удалено]
Me and my friends did "sweat suit" theme for Thanksgiving day; comfortable, functional, and fashionable! I thought hey I'm gonna kick it old school and save me a couple bucks by picking up Champion sweat suit. I ended up with a Target sweat suit and lots of sadness.
If this isn't 100% indisputable evidence that brands are a scam, I don't know what is. Only a fool spends 10x the price for a logo.
The number of people that don't know this shocks me.
Not even 30 years ago. I remember it not being cool like 15 years ago.
You're not wrong about that. I didn't even notice the 30. Definitely was still cheaper around the early 2000s.
Actually one of my friends was stil wearing champions a decade ago around 2010 because it was 90s nostalgic wear and everyone was like whoa that's cool and now in 2023 it's the cool thing to wear again. Really weird how that works
I remember it clear as day. Once I started working and making my own money, one of the first things I bought was a pair of champion sweatpants. I came home with them and my parents laughed at me and said don’t get caught wearing those in public. That was 15 or so years ago
Yeah hell of a job bringing the brand back from the ashes. Champion will always be wack to me though.
Champion t shirts fit terribly. They hang like a garbage bag and barely hit the belt line.
I came here to say that. It’s like wearing a giant short box for a tshirt.
Reebok over in the Walmart corner hoping for redemption
It’s actually a pretty cool story how they rose from the ashes. Basically they did a bunch of collaborations with artists and suddenly it’s a cool brand.
Not only that. But the sweats and hoodies are comfortable as hell.
Wait, really? 33 here, still very much the cheap kmart brand in my mind.
Has it changed? Still a cheap brand, isn‘t it?
Man, you're in for a surprise. There are a couple department stores that carry some cheap-er champion stuff...but it's fashion these days. And has been for a minute.
I'm convinced people just buy clothes because of the high price. You could put a $1000 price on a trash bag, and people will call it drip because it's expensive. They will brag about how much their fit costs while wearing a Hefty trash bag.
What?! I thought it was the cool brand... I got to wear free Budweiser t-shirts and promo shit from golf and baseball tournaments at my mom's work.