Real McCoys fell off?

[Tom71]

Being quite new to the game and having zero interest in RMC due to the price, I'm curious how much were their products back in the day for several of you to highlight how much the price increased? Even in Classifieds nowadays when something from them shows up is easily close to 2k USD.

In Europe the price has increased by almost exactly 30% in the last 12-15 months.

 

[Marc mndt]

They do seem to hold their value really well on the japanese second hand market.

Does that make them more special / interesting?

 

[Aloysius]

That said, I find when purchasing from manufacturers that have kind of a single purpose, the old saying “you get what you pay for” often still rings true.

Like or dislike RMC, this isn’t them. They’re basically a full line heritage fashion brand; think RL but on a smaller scale. From underwear to t-shirts to jeans to repro prison uniforms to belts to hoodies to leather jackets and so on.

 

[Monitor]

Trends and options.

They're still at the top of the game but their stuff costs a lot, too.

Plus there's nothing you can do to make your product stand out from the competition if you are making copies of existing jackets. Affordability while maintaining the same standards is literally everything any of these makers has at this point.

 

[Bender]

RMC stuff is still some of the nicest around. At that level, you can't say definitively that one company is "better" than another... for patterns it comes down to who specializes in what, for build quality/fit & finish it's individual jacket by individual jacket.

That all said, the nicest jacket I own is a NOS RMCNZ G1 I picked up a few months back... So perhaps there is some merit to the talk that older RMC was even more amazing...

 

[ton312]

The last new piece I purchased from RMC was an absolute let down. Felt cheap. I know Ivan had the same thought as we bought the same jacket and joked about who could return it faster. Legitimately felt like a mass produced, mall quality catalog piece. For me, RMC died around 2012, the stuff after that simply did not look as good.

The larger point for me personally is that I can do better with material and fit when I buy something original, vs the reproduction. Particularly Japanese reproductions as the elongated rectangular shape of the jackets simply don’t do me any favors. This is not an RMC, rather a Y’2 but it perfectly demonstrates my point:

The rough out on this jacket was thin and limp. Look at the collar. Lifeless, rectangular body, no attempt at a tailored fit at all. $900

Schott, 60’s-70’s era;

Significantly beefier (again look at the collar) and tailored perfectly to fit. Contoured body, broad chest. The opposite of the Japanese rectangle.
$200.

For me there is no benefit in paying an additional $700 for an inferior product. This is pretty much what I see across the spectrum of Japanese clothes. They aren’t made for western physiques. Add to the current crop of RMC pimping out every possible piece of trash with a Buck label attached at legitimately laughable prices….there is nothing worth buying there. It’s mass produced, catalog gear. Boring, uninspired and overpriced.

 

[Bfd70]

Seems like everything’s been said. I think we agree that there is a price point of diminishing returns.
Anecdotally my 2 RMC have had zipper failures. I’ll never buy another of their jackets unless deeply discounted used.