Underneath three floors of Topshop, Topman is an over-priced bunker full of polyester.

“Listen,” said a disgruntled Topshop customer to the security guard at the door, “this is digusting. There’s nobody in the store. Why are you making everyone line up outside?”

This was an excellent question. I was poised at the front of that line, wondering with my colleagues why we were waiting to get into what looked like an empty store. It was 5pm Monday evening and we figured between the rain and the time, there couldn’t be a line to get in. And yet there was.

After delaying its opening six months, and then queuing shoppers around the block to get in for days after its grand opening last week, Topshop and its menswear stepchild Topman had a lot of hype to live up to.

We only waited about ten minutes, but it was off-putting, especially once we got in and discovered for ourselves that the 40,000 square foot store was like a club before 9pm: noisy, but with only a few scattered patrons.

Topman was in the basement. The cold tile floors, bright displays and relatively low ceilings gave the men’s section a sort of 80s discount department store feel. Walking by copious square footage dedicated to t-shirts ($24) with “cute” graphics (an airship made of a baguette with the motto “Bread Zeppelin,” for example), I made my way to the tailored clothing.

A nice looking red and black plaid wool two-button blazer was marked $180. A cotton blazer in a fine black and white check pattern was marked $140. Among the suits, there were a few sharkskin models in red and gray. A black one-button skinny fit suit jacket sells for $360, trousers separate. The tailored clothing looked great. It was the kind of styling I long for when I visit an H&M or a Banana Republic (both of which always seem to be playing it too safe).

The ties were a disappointment. All $24, all super narrow, but all poorly made. As frequent readers of this blog know, I’ve been looking for a skinny leather tie for more than three years. My search seemed to end with Topman’s online store last September, only to be foiled by their Byzantine e-commerce security protocols. I’m glad I didn’t get that tie; its “leather” is paper-thin (and paper-like), and it’s backed with polyester.

Now the sport shirts. Like the tailored clothing, they looked great. But many of the shirts felt crispy: they were 65 percent polyester. I’m not totally opposed to wearing polyester, but I am violently against paying cotton prices for it. One, a black button-down collared shirt with gray pinstripes sells for $50. When I looked at the tag to check the blend, a frightening message in red capital letters screamed: “KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE.” I backed away slowly and checked another shirt, this one in bright colors with narrow collars: $40, 65 poly/35 cotton.

By the time we all left, I was just as ornery as the woman who challenged the security guard when we were waiting in line. The selection wasn’t as wide as I thought it would it be (there are three floors of women’s wear to one of menswear). While the shirts and tailored clothing looked great, everything was priced about 20 to 25 percent higher than I expected—much worse if you take into account the rampant polyester blends.

As I walked out the door, I noticed the line was gone. It was 5:45pm.

I walked up Broadway to Uniqlo, the New York flagship of the Japanese fast fashion chain that does nearly everything Topman does, only better. I don’t want to belabor the point, but Uniqlo even looks better. It’s brighter and airier with higher ceilings and a men’s section that isn’t relegated to the basement. Floors are wood, not cheap tile. Amazingly, Uniqlo was more crowded than Topshop/Topman, and the lines were at the registers—not the doors.

At Uniqlo, blazers run from $79 to $129 (Topman is $120 to about $250, and some are polyester blends). Shirts range from $29 to $39, and all were 100% cotton. A nicer, all-cotton version of those colorful narrow-collared shirts at Topman can be found at Uniqlo in their designer collaboration with Opening Ceremony for $49.

Topshop/Topman’s honeymoon in New York cannot last much longer. The effect of taking U.K. prices—£12 for a tie, for instance—and merely turning them into dollars and then doubling them is that everything is offensively overpriced. And I haven’t seen this much polyester in decades. I’ll come back when they have their first sale.