This weekend, a friend who is working in the fasion industry suggested we go to the Tory Burch sample sale.
I thought it may be a cool experience and I may score some bargains, so I gladly agreed.
It was nothing like I expected.
When we I got there she was already on line at the end of it - that was one avenue and two streets long! I had to walk for 10 minutes to get to the end of the line!
I wanted to leave, but my friend wanted to stay. Since I felt that she could have invited someone who would not abandon here there, I felt I should stay.
It took almost 4 hours before we got in! There were a couple of physical fights(!) when people tried to cut in line. Many people tried, some even refused to leave when caught until being chased away by force.
Some people who were behind us and also waited for 4 hours did not even get in!
It was surreal. You know the pictures they used to print of people standing online for something in a former Soviet Union.... that could not even compare. You could not photograph this line in its entirety. Maybe only from the air. Someone could publish this with pictures as a story about US.
Anyway, I got 3 tops ($75, $75, $65 - each sells for around $200-$300 at the store they were really pretty) and a purse for $195 ($400 at the store, classical yet matches almost everything).
My friend got a tote and 2 dresses and paid about the same. This is a way to build a nice wardrobe at a reasonable price and look stylish. But I am not going to do this again!
Anyway, everybody in front of us in line were loading up. There were 3-4 registers and huge line to the register. So all day, the warehouse was selling about 2K of clothing per minute with line never slowing down.
And people say "recession, recession..."
It was the craziest shopping experience I ever had!
June 1st, 2009 at 11:18 pm
June 1st, 2009 at 11:43 pm 1243896223
the only other thing I can think of that is similar, is when a festivals tickets go on sale, called the Big Day Out. the tickets sell out online in about 5 minutes (all 50 000 of them) and there are several music stores who have allocated tickets. the lineup for those tickets starts at 5pm THE NIGHT BEFORE the shop opens (at 9am in the morning). Last year a friend camped out for us and bought us tickets, he got there at 730pm and was already down the street, around the corner and halfway down that street. He had a chair, a bottle of water, some energy bars and a sleeping bag.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 am 1243898421
June 3rd, 2009 at 01:25 am 1243988745
glad you found something though