Circle size is the production run. Colour is status: orange live, white last pairs, tan above retail, grey below retail.
Apogee is an outlet. We buy end-of-run and cancelled orders direct from the brands, check every pair by hand, and put it on a shelf in Manchester at the price on the label. Below is everything we hold, placed by when it dropped, what it costs against retail, and how much is left.
Shoebox Orange
A general release that never sold through. Twelve thousand pairs made, a year on the shelf, and the only thing wrong with it is that everybody already has one.
Eyelet Steel
Nine hundred pairs, all of them gone but nineteen. This is the only shoe on the chart sitting above its retail price, and it has been climbing for eleven months.
Gum Runner
Cancelled order. The buyer walked away from five thousand pairs in March and we took the lot at cost. Gum sole, unlined nubuck, thirty pounds under.
Tissue White
Eighty-eight pairs left of twenty-four hundred. Barely a discount because it does not need one — this is the shoe people come in and ask for by name.
Vulcan Black
Full price, and we will not move on it. A winter trail sole on a town shoe. Twelve weeks old and it is the fastest thing on the wall.
Midnight Foil
Ours. Three hundred pairs, made ninety minutes from this room, in the one colourway we could afford to get right. Friday, ten in the morning, in person only.
01 — The legend
Each pair sits exactly where its numbers put it. Fly it twice and you can read the shape of an outlet: old stock low and scattered, new stock high and tight to the retail line.
The camera flies forward through the release calendar. You start fifty-eight weeks back in the archive and land on Friday.
The orange line down the middle is RRP. Drift left is money off. Drift right is a pair that has appreciated past what it cost new.
Deep stock rides high. Shoes sink as they sell. The ones near the floor are nearly gone.
A small star was a three-hundred-pair run. A large one was a general release of twelve thousand.
02 — The numbers
Updated when a pair leaves the building, not on a schedule. If it says nineteen, there are nineteen. We would rather you drove over for nothing than found out here that we had already sold it.
| Line | Colourway | Status | Released | Price | RRP | Against retail | Pairs left of run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nine Dials | Shoebox Orange | Outlet | 58 wk | £95 | £130 | −£35 | 1,204 / 12,000 |
| Halyard Mid | Eyelet Steel | Archive | 47 wk | £230 | £160 | +£70 | 19 / 900 |
| Vantage Lo | Gum Runner | Outlet | 34 wk | £110 | £140 | −£30 | 412 / 5,000 |
| Meridian 04 | Tissue White | Last pairs | 21 wk | £145 | £150 | −£5 | 88 / 2,400 |
| Coalfield Trail | Vulcan Black | Live | 12 wk | £165 | £165 | at RRP | 640 / 8,000 |
| APOGEE 01 | Midnight Foil | Drops Friday | — | £240 | £240 | our price | 300 / 300 |
Counted on Sunday night after the shutters came down. Two of us, one clipboard, four hours.
Across the four outlet lines. It is not a sale, it is what the stock cost us plus the rent.
We would rather carry six things properly than forty badly. Every one has been on our own feet.
Not one, ever. Brand invoices only. Ask to see one and we will show you.
03 — The bench
An outlet lives or dies on whether you believe the box. Here is what happens to a pair between the pallet arriving on Tariff Street and it reaching the shelf. It takes about nine minutes.
End-of-run and cancelled wholesale orders, bought on an invoice with a name on it. Never a marketplace, never a private seller, never a middleman with a story.
Two people open every box. Stitch count, tongue label, sole cement, the weight in the hand and the smell of the glue. Nine minutes a pair.
Six-digit number, photographed on the bench, entered against the line of the invoice it arrived on. That number is printed on your receipt.
A, B, or box-damaged. B and below are marked on the shelf and priced accordingly. We do not hide a crease and we do not re-lace to flatter.
No back room, no list, no holds. What is out is what we have. If it is in your size it is yours; if it is not, it is not coming.
It is a cold warehouse with four hundred linear feet of plywood shelving and one spotlight per bay. There is no music, no seating and nobody will approach you. Everything is out, in size order, at the price on the label.
04 — The one that got away
Halyard Mid is the only line in the building priced above retail, and we are not proud of it. Nine hundred were made. We sold four hundred of them ourselves at £160 and watched the rest of the market do this.
We reprice it once a month against what it actually trades for, rounded down, and we will keep the last nineteen on the shelf rather than list them anywhere. When they go, they go to whoever is standing in front of them.
Drop 01 · Friday · 10:00 · in person only
Two thousand six hundred and sixty-three pairs are sitting on Tariff Street right now. The chart is just a way of looking at them.