Colorado’s Ouray Sportswear Will Shut Down, Lay Off Staff
Colorado’s Ouray Sportswear LLC will close its doors after more than 50 years in business.
The Englewood-based provider of customized apparel filed a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice dated Aug. 18 with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
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Ouray will start laying off all 154 employees beginning Oct. 17. It expects to fully shut down by the end of the year but might retain a few positions early into 2024.
In the WARN letter, Ouray president Connor Knutson blamed the shutdown on changing business needs.
The facility that’s closing down contains machinery that produces custom casual apparel and headwear. The company makes products for retail customers in the destination/resort, collegiate, golf and corporate markets. Founded in 1965 as Ski Country Imports, the company has evolved from a premier supplier of high-end ski and outdoor accessories to a sportswear and headwear B2B brand with over 4,000 wholesale customers. It has on-site embroidery and screen-print operators executing logos and specialty graphics on T-shirts, fleece, outerwear and headwear styles such as caps.
L2 Brands, also a maker of custom apparel and headwear, acquired Ouray from S&S Activewear earlier this year with plans to get the Englewood firm into new product categories, geographies and end markets. Included in the purchase was the outdoor-inspired headwear and accessories brand Locale, which Ouray acquired in 2021. S&S acquired Ouray in 2021 when it bought TSC Apparel.
Ouray is the latest in the sector to conduct mass layoffs, after David’s Bridal, Forman Mills, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap Inc. and others all shed workers.
Knutson noted in his WARN letter that Ouray has met its legal requirement in providing a 60-day notice, a rule that seems to be tripping up other retailers.
Bed Bath & Beyond, which has since liquidated stores as part of its bankruptcy, was the subject of a lawsuit claiming that it failed to provide the required notice period for mass layoffs. And Gap, which is cutting 1,800 jobs, found itself a named defendant in a lawsuit claiming that it provided just 15 days’ notice.
This month, Express Inc. announced plans to trim 150 jobs to cut expenses. And Hanesbrands is also cutting U.S. office and cut-and-sew jobs. Retail lost 11,000 jobs in June after adding 23,000 the month prior, according to the government data.
