Flemington, New Jersey A Town That Bargains

By J.D. Reed

This is the New Jersey that David Letterman cannot work into a quip. If one drives east from the Delaware River on an apple-crisp autumn afternoon, a landscape of cornfields, horse farms and wooded hills unrolls from the horizon. There is not a chemical factory or oil refinery in sight. Oh, oh, wait a minute. On the outskirts of Flemington, a picturesque village of Victorian homes and red-brick buildings, a sign proclaims, FACTORY LUGGAGE OUTLET -- BRAND NAMES AT BIG SAVINGS! Something decidedly unbucolic is going on out here.

The impression is confirmed a few moments later in the snarled traffic on Flemington's tree-shaded Main Street. People stream along the sidewalks and across the street carrying plastic bags emblazoned with pricey logos: ADIDAS, CALVIN KLEIN, VILLEROY & BOCH. Just who, a gridlocked visitor wonders, would come to rural Flemington, N.J., to buy such chic cityside items as Waterford crystal or Joan & David shoes? The answer: a growing legion of well-heeled devotees of factory-outlet shopping.

Forget the downtown department store and the suburban shopping mall. Leave the catalogs on the coffee table and turn off the video-shopping channel. Hop into the car with a full bandolier of credit cards and head for the outback. Tucked away in Monterey, Calif.; Boaz, Ala.; Rockford, Mich.; Freeport, Me.; and a dozen odd small towns in between, scores of manufacturers' outlet stores are doing a land-office business by offering 25% to 70% savings. Along with the bargains, urban consumers enjoy a day in the country and engage in a venerable American dream -- the inalienable right to pursue the deep discount. Says Charles Bloom, a Flemington-based developer who has put together six profitable factory-to-you outlet villages in the U.S.: "This is the wave of the retail future."

For little Flemington (pop. 4,000), once a center of iron foundries, the wave is of tidal proportions. The town's history as a bargain haven goes back to the turn of the century. Its success, though, really took off in 1921, when the Flemington Fur Co. opened its doors to sell the fur coats it made there.The outlet became an East Coast shopping mecca. These days it sells a $10,500 mink coat for a mere $7,895. Furs were not enough to save Flemington. In the mid-1970s, when the town was losing business to shopping malls, and its retail space could be rented cheaply, the Dansk kitchenware firm opened a factory outlet, hoping to capitalize on the fur company's cachet. By 1982, Bloom, 63, a New Jersey accountant who had wandered into real estate, had transformed a cluster of artisans' shops in Flemington into an 88-store outlet complex called Liberty Village. Much of the success, he says, is that "in outlets, you know you're getting the real brand-name merchandise."

Today some 35,000 shoppers a week descend on about 125 outlets in town to get the real stuff. Young couples from Manhattan take an hour's drive on Saturdays to stock up on Fieldcrest sheets; Philadelphia Main Liners trek some 40 miles for Harve Benard outfits. Suburban moms motor in for the kids' Nike running shoes, and senior citizens on bus tours from as far away as central Pennsylvania buy Carter's clothing for grandchildren. Even given the discounts, Flemington merchants grossed about $100 million last year, and they expect to do better this year.

Liberty Village, the commercial heart of Flemington, is somewhat of a surprise. Meandering over several acres of former farmland, the pleasant re- creation of a colonial marketplace boasts wide brick sidewalks, several luncheon stops and plenty of rest rooms. Long gone are the pipe racks and jumbled bins of second-quality merchandise in dusty warehouses. Since the manufacturers are selling their own goods, the stores are well stocked and well organized. Says Jean Smith, the manager of Liberty Village: "Mostly we have last season's styles and production overruns." Indeed, "Flemington is not competing with K mart," says Fran Durst, president of the Hunterdon < County Chamber of Commerce, which has headquarters here. "In the Anne Klein outlet, you're still going to pay $250 for a suit. But it would have cost you $500 in Bloomingdale's."

Flemington shoppers have their own styles and strategies. Holly Hayden, an insurance-company computer operator from Monmouth County, an hour's drive away, visits the shops three or four times a year to see what's new. Browsing through the Revere Ware outlet on this Saturday, she's looking for a wedding gift for a friend. "I shop Flemington generically," she says. "This gift has to be tableware, so I'll get the best things I can find here, or at Royal Doulton or Waterford."

For Dr. Frank Pinto, a U.S. Navy physician stationed at the submarine base in Groton, Conn., shopping in Flemington is a kind of pre-emptive strike against overpaying. He strides through the Van Heusen outlet, selecting sport shirts from neat stacks. "I planned to stop off here on a trip to Philadelphia," he says, "just to avoid the ungodly markups on clothing at the regular stores."

To some, low prices are only part of the attraction. Says Luanne Culbert, a New Jersey chiropractor's wife who gave up her job as a stockbroker to raise her daughter Erin, 2: "It's a great day in the fresh air without the hubbub of the mall. I look for things that aren't in the department stores."

Not everyone shops all the time in Flemington. The town's park benches are crowded with bargain widowers -- husbands who drowse in the sunshine while their wives continue the hunt. Fathers of young children often elect to take a ride on the historic Black River and Western Railroad, an aging three-car train that rambles some eleven miles through the woodlands to Ringoes, N.J., and back five times a day.

Improbably, Flemington has managed to absorb the shopping influx without undue strain or violence to its historic setting. On Main Street, for instance, stands the 1828 Greek-revival Hunterdon County courthouse, famous as the site of the sensational 1935 trial of Bruno Hauptmann, who was convicted of kidnaping and killing aviator Charles Lindbergh's baby. Just a block away is the Clothing Mansion, a three-story emporium of discounted men's wear in a carefully preserved old home.

Some younger residents, of course, worry about expanding commercialism. Says the Chamber of Commerce's Durst: "We try to point out to them that over 50% of village taxes are paid by the merchants." Still, on a pleasant Saturday $ afternoon, with traffic tied up and stores mobbed with bargain blitzers, one wonders what the locals do for fun. They go shopping, of course. "We can't even move around here," says one resident. "So we usually head over to Bridgewater Commons Mall. You know, to shop at Macy's and Brooks Brothers." Apparently, it's all a matter of perspective. When you live in the middle of a bargain, full price is a new kind of kick.