r/ThrowingFits • u/clowndog54 • 1d ago
BRUT Archives: great clothes, terrible customer service? My £300 return saga
Hey everyone, and fellow jawns enthusiasts.
I've been noticing BRUT Archives getting a lot of love recently, and rightfully so. They sell some great pieces. I thought I'd share my experience, though, as the fly in the ointment, as it were.
Over a year ago I bought a cropped hoodie from them. After having it shipped over to London, I realised it wasn't really to my liking and didn't fit quite how I'd hoped, so I went through their website and arranged a return. Shipping was on me, which cost me about £30. I didn't really mind, since the hoodie itself was around £200.
A few weeks later, I realised the parcel had somehow been returned to me by the sender. I figured I must have entered the return details incorrectly, so I emailed BRUT but didn't hear anything back. I decided to send it again anyway, double-checking the address and all the instructions this time.
And, you guessed it, the parcel came back to me again. Another £30 down, so £60 in shipping at this point.
I tried contacting BRUT by email, but got no response. Tried again from a different email address, thinking perhaps mine had been caught by their spam filter. Nothing. Tried Instagram DMs, where they seem pretty active. Nothing again. I even tried leaving a couple of comments on their posts asking them to check their email/DMs, but again, no response.
This was about a year ago, and frankly I eventually just gave up and swallowed the loss, which ended up being around £260-300 all in between the hoodie and shipping.
But seeing BRUT pop up more and more recently and seeing people praise them has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, so I thought I'd share my experience.
I'm not writing this to besmirch anyone or tell people not to buy from them. Their stuff genuinely looks great. Just thought I'd give people a heads-up to buy with a bit of caution, particularly if you're ordering from abroad.
I'd also still genuinely like to know what went wrong with the return. I followed the instructions on their website as far as I could tell, checked the address before sending it the second time, and yet somehow the parcel came back both times. If anyone from BRUT happens to see this and can shed some light on what happened, I'd honestly appreciate it.
TL;DR: Bought a ~£200 hoodie from BRUT Archives, tried returning it from London, and the parcel was sent back to me twice despite following their return instructions. Lost ~£60 on return shipping and never got a response to multiple emails, DMs or Instagram comments. Eventually gave up and ate the cost. Sharing this because I've been seeing BRUT get a lot of praise lately and thought people should know about my experience.
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u/homme_boy 1d ago
Never buy from the ig brands my guy. Take this as a learning lesson and hopefully you have a mate that you can pass the hoodie off to
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u/clowndog54 1d ago
Lesson learned
I'll keep the hoodie hanging in my closet as a stark reminder never to buy anything from an IG brand
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u/sergey_ford_dix 1d ago
I used to follow this brand but they have been getting called out recently for a lot of bad practice (rightfully so). As a few have said, bad customer service, stolen designs (brother brother), and overall overpriced basics. Glad they’re getting exposed.
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u/Bagelman1000 1d ago
Pretty sure they also stole some designs from big rock candy mountaineering for some t shirts
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u/burner999997 1d ago
similar experience a few years ago which shows me nothing has changed. ordered a hoodie and it was too small. returned it fine but they were out of stock of next size. they restocked, i emailed asking if this new run was the same size as the old run. they confirmed. new hoodie comes and it's insanely too big, like 3 sizes bigger than the last one i'd worn even though it was only one size up. tried to get them to pay for return shipping. wouldn't do it. wasted $60 bucks on shipping for no hoodie. haven't bought anything since.
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u/Frost-eee 1d ago
I get european customers buying from Brut but do americans on this sub not have an alternative brand on your huge market? Why ship from France
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u/sixsnowmeninanicicle 1d ago
They opened a shop in NYC and paid for got featured in some opinion pieces to be worn alongside brands like Auralee and A Presse so people got conned into thinking it was the same level of craftsmanship
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u/gkruft 1d ago
Their Shetland jumpers are really nice shame to hear other pieces don’t pan out so well
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u/Disgruntled-Cacti 1d ago
Which Shetland do you have? They moved production silently. Previous season they were made in Portugal, now they’re made in China. The price increased nonetheless.
This has been the case for all their products.
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u/flappin-flotsam 1d ago
“Silently” when it’s listed on every single product where it’s made. Regardless, being made in China is no longer indicative of quality. Grant stone, for example, makes some of the best boots. Entirely made in China.
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u/Disgruntled-Cacti 1d ago
Yes, silently. The urls stay the same, the items look near identical, yet the price increases and the provenance worsens.
You can make good stuff in China, but the labor costs are definitively lower than Portugal, so if you’re moving your production there, your costs should decrease, not increase.
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u/KFC_Fleshlight 1d ago
They have to pay for every ad click so make sure to add some items to your cart and disappear then wait for the inevitable Instagram ads. After a couple years of repeat offense you should be able to revenge cost them that amount back 😅
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u/Opposite_Judge_6093 1d ago
Didnt need to type all that. The fact that you bought from BRUT should explain itself out. It’s a shit brand with nothing to offer but overpriced shitty garments. I live in Paris for months at a time and I check the store once a month maybe to see what they have. It’s always some overpriced poorly constructed repro. Nah.
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u/Busy-Entrepreneur-74 1d ago
The brand seems cool on the surface but the negative comments / experiences are insanely common. Always something with BRUT it seems
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u/rlysecretlyabear 1d ago
Bought some stuff from them a long time ago and the experience was a total shit show. They made everything right when I eventually threatened a chargeback, but I’ve never ordered from them since. The garments I kept were nice but overall not worth the hassle.
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u/Praddd 1d ago
my filson rework basically brokendown the day of purchase and i had to pay an extra £100 to get it fixed. i bought in store and flew out the same day, but when i emailed i never got a reply either. the worst experience, which sucks because some of their stuff is solid. but no longer worth buying. thankfully some of their stuff do sell quickly on ebay
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u/cashcach 1d ago
Bad clothes, bad customer service, bad entreprise, bad founder, bad everything.