Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

In April, clothing sales fell 79 percent in the United States, the largest dive on record. Purchases of sweatpants, though, were up 80 percent. Entireworld was like the rare life form that survives the apocalypse. By betting that the luxury market would fail, Sternberg had evaded the very forces that were bringing down the rest of the industry.

Entireworld is sort of post-D.T.C., which is to say that there is no Silicon Valley boardroom trying to solve a problem for you. It’s just Sternberg, a fashion-industry refugee, feeling his way through it.

Entireworld was born in 2018 as a D.T.C. (direct-to-consumer) line, with no seasons, no shows, no novelty. “I wanted complete freedom from that,” he said.

In order to protect exclusivity, stores had to commit to even larger buys, ordering more clothes than they could possibly sell. Then, when they couldn’t move the stuff, they’d return it. Thanks to the rise of fast fashion and the luxury market’s simultaneous attempt to keep up with its impossible pace, it all started to feel disposable. So detrimen... See more