I love the idea of spring cleaning. Back in Romania we frantically scrubbed every corner of the house, hauled heavy rugs outside to be aired, and spread generous amounts of lavender in closets and dresser drawers.

But I don’t remember throwing clothes away.

It’s true we had a more permanent relationship with our clothes, probably born out of necessity–communism has its share of problems, but consumerism isn’t one of them. Perhaps this is why the KonMari method never quite resonated for me. But for all you KonMari fans out there, take a moment to consider these seven facts before embarking on your next purging ceremony.

– Due to the popularity of Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, thrift shops and donation centers are having trouble keeping up. Treehugger reports that Goodwills in the D.C. area saw a sixty-
six percent increase over last year. Do you really want to add to their problem?

– Your well-intentioned donations may hurt the environment more than help it. Only 0.1 percent of the clothes we donate are recycled into new textile fibre. A large percentage of the rest end up in methane producing landfills or toxic gas emitting incinerators.

– Fashion trends have a way of coming back. Don’t throw your clothes away just because they are not trendy anymore. Remember, even fanny packs and mommy jeans have found their way back on the runway.

I get the appeal of Marie Kondo’s spark joy method. It’s simple to follow and validates our need for joy. But I’m inclined to take a less aggressive approach.

– I get the appeal of Marie Kondo’s spark joy method. It’s simple to follow and validates our need for joy. But I’m inclined to take a less aggressive approach. I assess my wardrobe at the beginning of each season. I hold on to pieces that fit my lifestyle and current trends, and I part with pieces that are damaged, that I’m not comfortable wearing, or no longer fit my body. The difference? I make sure I have the things I need, even if they don’t spark joy, so I avoid wasting more money. Also, I avoid feeling guilty about past spending.

– You’ve probably read stories about bloggers who make $29,000 selling their closet. I don’t know what they had in their closet, but recently a second-hand shop offered me less than fifteen percent of the market suggested retail price of some nearly new items.

– I don’t know about you, but an empty closet is just another excuse to go shopping. After that first dopamine rush caused by the newly organized closet I’d look to replace the things I got rid of.

If you want to save money, declutter your closet, and save the planet, shop with restraint. It might not be as easy as buying with impunity and purging, but it’s more cost-effective, less wasteful and better for the environment.

If you spent your weekend bingeing on Netflix’s Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, you’re in good company. The KonMari method of organizing and purging has struck a chord world over, garnering a huge following. But what’s to be done with all the clothes that don’t spark joy?

Hopefully you’ll choose to discard the unwanted clothing in a responsible way.  That means not putting your clothes in garbage and choosing their next home carefully—or, as  Gwyneth might say, consciously uncoupling with them.

If you’re doubting how important this is, here are some sobering statistics to convince you.

• Americans now buy five times the number of garments they bought in the nineteen-eighties, and that number is growing
• The United States produces fifteen billion pounds of textile waste a year
• The Council of Textile Recycling reports that only fifteen percent of those billions get recycled
• clothing, which does not disintegrate easily, makes up six percent of landfill waste  
• until an item fully disintegrates, it produces toxins and disburses them into the atmosphere,  to wit:
  • Rubber-Boot Soles take fifty-eighty years to disintegrate
  • Leather shoes take twenty-five to forty years
  • Wool Clothing takes one to five years

Assuming I’ve done my job convincing you of recycling’s importance (I’ve done my job convincing you, right?) the next step is figuring out what to do with these items of clothing. Giving them as hand-me-downs to a friend or relative is always a good option. Upcycling them into new pieces of clothing, quilts, bunting, table clothes or artwork is a wonderful approach.

Donating them is also a great strategy, provided you educate yourself.

Logistics play a big part here. Not everyone has a car or frankly a parking lot or garage here, so convenience is important. While there are no curbside textile recycling programs in New York City, refashionNYC, a program launched by the Bloomberg administration in 2011, offers free donation bins to residential buildings. RefashionNYC works in collaboration with the NYC department of sanitation and the non-profit organization, Housing Works. I haven’t seen too many of those out in the wild, so if you know of any, please let me know.

Another non-profit organization, GrowNYC hosts daily Stop’N’Swap events throughout the city, and, in collaboration with the for-profit Wearable Collections, organizes drop-off opportunities at different Greenmarket locations.

Americans now buy five times the number of garments they bought in the nineteen-eighties

You’ll also want to research whatever organization you choose to donate to. We tend to assume that organizations that take these donations will sell them and donate the proceeds to charities, but it’s not that simple

Non-profit entities like Goodwill and the Salvation Army only sell in their stores twenty percent of the items received from donations. Another portion is sold through Goodwill outlets and auctions and what is left, about fifty percent, is sent to for-profit textile recycling organizations.

According to S.M.A.R.T., the organization that represents the interests of secondary materials and recycled textiles, only half of the items received are recycled. About thirty percent of them get cut into rags for industrial use, and twenty percent are processed into a soft fiber for filling furniture, home insulation and car sound-proofing. The destination of the other fifty percent isn’t well publicized. The uncomfortable truth is that at high costs to the environment they make their way across the ocean to East African or Eastern European countries to be sold for a profit, and in effect undermining those developing economies.

There’s a lot to consider when it comes to getting rid of unwanted clothes, and no quick answers. Thinking twice before making another purchase could be the best route to take.  Shopping at sample sales is a great way to give clothes a second chance. Sharing this type of information with others will also help.

Further complicating the issue of recycling is that the government, non-profit and for-profit companies are all vying for a sliver of your unwanted clothes, so it’s important to research what the different companies do with your donated clothes.

I don’t harbor any nostalgia for communism, but I can’t deny the influence it had on my relationship with fashion.

Imagine Romania, circa 1980’s: rationed food, rationed gas, rationed hot and cold water, car curfews on Sundays, two hours of TV a day, freezing-cold apartments and exactly one “house of fashion” in each major city.

Although “Casa Modei” was only a pretentious tailor shop located in an elegant Main Street building, it gave status to its customers. In a society that demanded uniformity, where everyone drove the same type of car and lived in similar apartments, some of us saw fashion as a rare opportunity to be different.

Being well dressed required connections (to stores or factories producing for the West), a good eye and creativity. Having relatives who lived “Outside”, was also an advantage. Lucky for me, I had an uncle who not only lived in New York, but was also gay.  He was impossibly stylish and very generous. He understood how to mix high end luxury pieces (that he would send me) with whatever I could get my hands on there, so he sent me trendy bags, designer sunglasses, jeans, designer jackets, cashmere sweaters (unheard of in Romania) and beautiful accessories. That was my first lesson in combining splurge/steal clothing.

While we wouldn’t want to recreate the conditions under which I developed my fashion sensibilities, I am happy to share with you  important takeaways:

ALL YOUR CLOTHES SHOULD MAKE YOU HAPPY.

I had more than one dress as a teenager, but I can count them all on one hand. Most of them had the same story of origin. I designed it and found the right fabric and Grandma sewed it on her manual Singer Sewing Machine. My dresses were made with love and they made me happy.  Like the one I wore to my first boyfriend’s birthday party. It was there I discovered that I wasn’t his only “girlfriend” invited to the party, but that doesn’t mar my fond memories for the floral, flounce hem, spaghetti strapped midi dress that saved the day for me.

NO MONEY? NO PROBLEM. YOUR CREATIVITY WILL KICK IN.

We didn’t have money, and most certainly we didn’t have Instagram to tell us how to look. We had to create, improvise, learn skills and take fashion risks.

Like making my prom dress from a dreamy Christian Dior nightgown sent to my mom by my uncle. A very feminine white gauzy cotton 1970s peasant style nightgown got an easy makeover with the help of an elastic waistband and a shirred hem. The result was a long and flowy bohemian number. I had such a good time dancing the night away in it, that I was able to let go of any ill-will I could have harbored against Courtney Love for getting credited for starting the lingerie dress trend  in the nineties.

BUY QUALITY OR YOU’LL PAY TOO MUCH.

As I said, overspending was discouraged. At one point the food was so scarce that if someone was discovered with food rations (sugar, flower, oil) larger than a month’s supply, she could go to jail for six months. So I learned to recognize high quality clothing. Natural fabrics, metal zippers, buttons, good thread, and finished seams are all indicators of a quality item that was made to last, not just to be sold. There was a saying back then, “I am too poor to buy cheap stuff,” but its meaning is timeless and universal. So much so, I’m going to make it my personal mission to bring that expression back. (And while I’m at it, I’m also going to get the word out about Courtney Love taking credit for my idea!)

I miss those days of fashion freedom when the creative process was just as important as the end result. It’s a great lesson in the power of the human spirit and how adversity forces people to look for alternative pathways. I suppose it’s fitting this week to give thanks for all the experiences that life brings to us, because we never know where they might lead to. (Or what outfits we might get out of the situation.)

Fashion wants to be taken seriously and I want people to take it as seriously as I do. Psychologists consider it a mere capitalist manipulation of the masses. Economists think of it as “the opposite of rational”. I disagree with all of them. I believe those who don’t take fashion seriously are misunderstanding what fashion truly is. However, I have my own doubts about fashion’s ability (or inability) to send a cohesive message to the world about its credo. There are inconsistencies not only in what we understand fashion to be; is it the product or is it the change? There are also inconsistencies in what fashion stands for. Perhaps this is why it is so misunderstood. Here are just few of the fashion inconsistencies that trouble me:

FASHION’S TERMINOLOGY IS SO MISLEADING.

The shows presented at fashion weeks in New York, Milan, and Paris are considered prêt-à-porter (ready to wear) but some designers use these opportunities to display only their creative skills as a marketing ploy for their brands. In other words, they use these shows to debut collections that serve more as an art form making a statement, rather than clothing that’s truly “prêt-à-porter.” I know it’s hard to shock anyone on the streets of New York City, but I believe my jaw might drop at the sight of anyone wearing this.

FASHION SAYS ONE THING, BUT THEN DOES THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

Fashion magazines—self-declared progressive voices that are supposed to promote change and empower women—seem to be completely gaga these days over a prince charming fairytale and EVERY SINGLE OUTFIT that Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex wears. Isn’t that just a little hypocritical? How exactly are these magazines empowering girls? I am not joining the ranks of those saying Meghan Markle was a bad feminist for giving up her job to pursue this marriage. I am only saying that the fashion industry is not doing her, or us women, any favors diminishing powerful women into nothing more than fashion influencers. I understand their motivation to also sell products featured within their pages, but I wish they’d quit pretending they are doing it to save us.

FASHION IS SPELLBOUND BY STREETWEAR.

I personally don’t understand what streetwear’s superpower is. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it’s taken over luxury fashion and that even chic preppy grandpa Ralph Lauren has not been safe from its influence. Virgil Abloh of Off-White fame and more recently named artistic director at Louis Vuitton men’s wear collection said, “Streetwear is what is worn on the street and it’s how real people wear clothes, sneakers with a dress, a hoodie—it’s mixing genres.” If the purpose is to democratize fashion, I am even more confused; how many people who flaunt “streetwear” on a daily basis can actually afford a rather simple looking blue anorak for $1390? If they can, I certainly don’t live on the right street.

I love fashion and I think the time has come for fashion to be taken seriously. It is economically and culturally significant and much can be learned by studying it through many different lenses. I believe there is truth to fashion’s lack of sense of humor, but if fashion wants people to quit laughing, then it’s time for fashion to address the emperor’s new clothes… season after season after season.

What do you think?

xx

Most of us are sample sale aficionados because we can’t afford to pay retail prices. Some of us are because we love the thrill of finding a good bargain. But the rise of ethical consumerism has introduced yet another motive to keep us on our toes (while hunting for the perfect pair of heels): sample sales and luxury consignment sites save the planet.

Ethical consumerism, ethical fashion, fair trade fashion, and sustainable fashion have all become ubiquitous in the world of fashion—but many brands also incorrectly use them interchangeably. It seems everyone from your BFF to your favorite brand is going green. I agree that “green is the new black” when it comes to fashion and shopping.

We strongly encourage you to go green but it’s impossible to do that properly if you don’t have a solid understanding of what “green” truly means. And considering that it’s becoming more and more trendy, you have to make sure you’re discerning enough to be able to separate the truly green from the, well, aqua.

We are concerned that articles like this one that proclaim things like, “The luxury resale market is expected to soar with the rise of mindful consumerism,” put too much emphasis on the “help the planet” factor and not enough on the “consignors can make a substantial buck on their used goods” factor. The article might simplify the reason why second-life merchandise thrives, but that doesn’t mean it is completely wrong. Our planet is better off with us purchasing less new merchandise.

Brands are under pressure to score large profits and be sustainable simultaneously—and some are willing to do that at whatever cost… including taking advantage of naive consumers who don’t really understand what “sustainable” means. This practice even has its own name: greenwashing. Please, don’t be that consumer who falls victim to this deceiving marketing strategy—be immune to greenwashing and brainwashing alike!

Step One

Understand the difference between ethical, fair trade, and sustainable fashion.

We couldn’t find better definitions than the ones provided in People Tree by founder and CEO Safia Minney. So yeah, click that link… or check out our twitter version (tight character limit) of these definitions:

• Fair Trade Fashion is defined as fashion created by a Fair Trade Certified Group with the goal of empowering marginalised people.
• Sustainable Fashion is a product that is made with environmentally-friendly standards.
• Ethical Fashion is a broader term that can encompass fair trade and sustainable fashion but is not always explicit. Ethical fashion has no distinct set of rules, practices, or governing body.

But:

• Fair Trade Fashion may also incorporate sustainable practice, including the use of organic cotton.
• Fair Trade Fashion are sometimes grouped under “Sustainable Fashion” when the production is considered “sustainable” to communities in providing livelihoods.

Step Two

If you’re going to buy new items, then make sure they check off as many of the above boxes as possible, or whichever boxes are most important to you. However, this can be a challenge getting this information out of brands…

So an alternative would be even further simplifying this process by buying at sample sales and consignment stores. Why? Because even if they don’t check the boxes, they’re at the very least: not new. That means you save them from being destroyed at the expense of Mother Earth. It appears that extending the life of a product instead of always conflating “new” with “better,” plus creating a culture around that idea might be a sensible thing to do… for now.

Happy green shopping!

xo

We had just re-launched The Stylish City with a new, more functional design (yes… again!) when we got the alert that Racked had published their final post. Their short farewell note sent us to their newly launched The Goods by Vox for stories about what people buy and why. In all honesty, Racked stepped away from sample sales coverage a couple of years back when they hired a new editor-in-chief. She decided to focus her resources on turning the website’s spotlight on fashion news and features. You can’t blame her, but you also can’t blame me—sample sale queen—for being sad. I was suddenly worrying: was that a sign that there is no hope to have a sustainable business model in this sample sale publishing space?

While bloggers with real rent-paying-jobs or understanding husbands (guilty as charged) can afford to cover NYC sample sales, it is hardly a business model to be envied. Do you remember DailyCandy? NBC closed them down unceremoniously due to decreased traffic. Even the beloved Mizhattan and the mizterious miss (or miz?) behind it has bowed out. Why? (Reveal yourself to me regardless because I want to meet you!)

What are the factors affecting this sample sale space that make it so difficult for websites about sample sales to survive? Sample sales are thriving, after all. Here is the good news about our beloved sample sales:

• Sample sale events have evolved from showing a limited number of real factory sample sales in the 90s to mostly selling excess inventory today. Let’s call a spade a spade” sample sales are overstock sales with large inventories.
• People love the thrill of scoring a bargain, so the public interest for sample sales has increased, despite the significant difficulties physical retail is facing. Brands took notice and turned it into a lifeline for them, and an opportunity for aspirational and budget shoppers.
• Sample sale events are organized these days. Some brands open up their showrooms so you can meet the designer (this happened to me at a Rachel Roy sample sale!).
• Most brands have stopped keeping the sample sale information secret, and they gladly share it with outlets that will publish it for free.

And yet companies like DailyCandy, Racked, and Mizhattan have all had to call it quits despite all of this good news. The question remains: WHY? Here’s the bad news that we suspect may be contributing to the potential demise of the sites who spread the word about sample sales:

• Prices of samples sales have increased as prices on overstock inventory cannot be as low as those of real samples. Ask anyone who works in the accounting department and they will explain to you why. Also, hiring an external company like 260 Sample Sale to host the sample sale, which has proven to be quite successful, comes at a cost. That leaves little room for other expenses like… advertisement.
• Sample Sales tend to be cyclical While website traffic is high during  the months of April-May and October-November, “sample sale season” it decreases significantly during “off season” months.
• Companies like 260 Sample Sale do their own dissemination of news through their customer list. They organize most NYC sample sales and are very transparent with products, prices, and even images. That doesn’t leave much room for a site like Racked to bring in newsworthy articles.
• It appears to be easy to copy large amounts of information from one site to another, which makes business tough. A competitor once asked me if I would agree to willingly give them access to my database or if they would have to “scrape” my site for that information without my approval. Yikes.
• High end brands continue to host “by invitation only” sample sales for their customers. Others prefer to burn merchandise worth millions of dollars than discount it. Um, really, Burberry?
• There is very little money to be made in advertising products at the end of life cycle. Companies push new products, but have little interest in investing more money in overstock items. It’s sad they don’t understand it’s a great opportunity to let aspirational shoppers become ambassadors for their brand.

Needless to say, we understand, Racked. And let this be our farewell letter to you. You will be missed and we are sad to see you go the same way DailyCandy and Mizhattan went. The Stylish City is still here… for now. But hopefully, for much longer…

Happy shopping,

M

In case you didn’t know, there is a Rent The Runway sample sale going on right now. If you are anything like me, and want to actually commit to dresses from Rent The Runway with which you might otherwise only have one-night stands… now is the time to get on one knee and propose—or hop on one leg in a dressing room and try it on. Either way, all this makes me wonder: do I love  Rent The Runway or do I hate it?

The sharing economy is all the rage these days, and we have to give credit to Rent The Runway for being a pioneer of sorts in that respect. It’s a logically sound idea after all. How many times are you going to wear the same dress you wore to that wedding? It’s nearly—gasp—blasphemous to wear the same dress twice to such occasions. So I doubt you would flaunt it at another event where you’ll see the same people you violently elbowed in an effort to catch the bouquet at that last wedding.

When the time came to choose a dress for a black-tie wedding that Saturday, I was delighted to see the Rent The Runway dress selection. I always wanted to wear a Monique Lhuillier gown, and renting one (in two sizes) for $140 seemed like a reasonable price for a dress that retails for $880. What could go wrong? A LOT, apparently.

I ordered the dress and the earrings from Rent The Runway and the following day I actually bought a pair of sandals that matched my evening clutch. When Friday came, the supposed delivery day, I received an email at around 4PM that raised my cortisol levels. The email reported the dress was actually not available in my size after all, but a stylist would choose another one for me so I was (kind of) covered. By 8PM I was still waiting for the surprise dress, so I called Rent The Runway and asked for an update. I was reassured the dress would be delivered within an hour. An hour passed and the dress was still not there.

At this time, my stress was teetering on the edge of a panic attack, so I crossed the street for a spicy margarita to forget my first world (but very serious) problems. When I returned home, the dress was still not there. Finally—at 11:30PM, it arrived. I just breathed a sigh of relief and went to bed without even opening the box.

When I opened the package Saturday morning, the day of the wedding, there was no surprise dress chosen for me by some mystery stylist. All that was there was original dress I’d chosen in its backup size that was too small for me. Panic overwhelmed me and there was not enough spicy margaritas in the world to make me feel better. I called Rent The Runway, and they advised me to go downtown to their store and physically pick up one. Um, the reason I’d ordered from Rent The Runway in the first place was so that I wouldn’t have to do exactly what I was doing right now.

But… here’s the good news: the store personnel was actually great. Both the customer service (Ru?) and the stylist (Mackenzie?) were professional, helpful, and (my perfect counterbalance) very calm. I ended up leaving the place with a better dress than the one I had originally chosen for myself.

So, after this both bad and good experience and then three more that proved to be somewhat similar, I guess I’m giving it yet another go? This weekend I am ordering another dress for a “casual country club look” and I am keeping the fingers crossed (as I type this—so excuse any typos) that it will be here on time.

Regardless of whether another dress fiasco ensues, here’s the takeaway lesson for you. I have placed a total of four Rent The Runway orders so far, and only two were delivered as expected. If you get the four days package, be prepared to receive it at the end of the first day, or on the second day (this is another story for another time). If you are flexible, keep calm, and rent the dress in a way that you are covered for anything that might go wrong because it’s still a great way to be stylish on a budget. Also, this is not based on my personal experience but rather on a stranger’s review; make sure you return everything on time. If you are late or they don’t receive the package, the penalties are such that you end up paying more than if you’d bought the item retail full price. Yikes!

What is your Rent The Runway experience?

Happy shopping,
Mirela

If you happen to work in fashion, you intend to work in fashion, or you just really love fashion, this post might make you just a little bit sad. Lately, there has been an avalanche of bad news when it comes to fashion and retail. As consumers or employees of these industries, we are in the odd position of being the sources, victims, and beneficiaries of these changes all at once.  Our relationship with the fashion industry? Well… the Facebook classification would be “It’s Complicated.” Brands themselves are trying hard to make sense of these tectonic movements, but I believe we as people must try to make sense of them too.

Here are some titles I came across just today:

How ‘Fashion’ Became a Bad Word
What’s Ailing America’s Fashion Darlings?
How Algorithms Are Threatening Fashion’s White-Collar Jobs
Influencer Ex Machina

Maybe reading just the titles alone won’t give you a full impression of what’s going on, so here’s a long (news) story short:

Fashion has fallen… well, out of fashion.

That’s it. Point blank. Fashion is no longer in vogue. How can I say that? Because evidence shows that we consumers are still spending money, but just not the way we used to. In the last year alone, the luxury market has experienced a 5% growth that has benefited not only them, but also digital upstart brands and direct-to-consumer companies. However, the cool kids of fashion from a couple of years back didn’t feel the same love. Brands like Narciso Rodrigues, Alexander Wang, Proenza Schouler, Rag and Bone, and Opening Ceremony, once encouraged by the enthusiastic response in their heyday, have hyper-expanded using the old-fashioned department store business model of distribution and are now struggling to understand the shift in the market. They’re scrambling to cut their losses and reposition themselves. Brands like Everlane that praise themselves for basic clothing and price transparency are the new cool kids.  Blame us, fickle consumers. It’s now trendier to spend money on wellness than on fashion.

Well-paying fashion and social media influencing jobs are filled more by AI and less by humans.

After years of education, internships, and endless efforts to make the right connections, you are finally ready. And then you read the news: more and more companies use artificial intelligence to design clothes, and to serve as buyers and merchandise planners. Some of us grew up dreaming to get a job in fashion and a few lucky ones have actually made that dream come true. But for those still dreaming, what shape do those dreams take now with these fewer options?  While the fashion industry was one of the first to export the manufacturing jobs overseas, it’s the first we hear of losing its white-color jobs to computers. So far it looks like machines are there only to “augment and automate tasks” and I understand companies’ efforts to be as efficient as possible, but I am not looking forward to a future where an algorithm decides what I buy, what I wear, and how I wear it. No matter my feelings about social media influencers (I’ve never been a fan, but that’s for another post), I still doubt that replacing them with computer-generated models will make me feel any better.

Reformation is a company that made its mission to be environmentally conscious while making you oh so West Coast chic. Its long-awaited sample sale has started today and this is what we know:

1) If there is one New York sample sale worth traveling for on a day like today (temperatures above 90 degrees), certainly it is this one.

2) Pictures supplied by 260 Sample Sale show racks of summer dresses that could be on the list of 50 styles to buy right NOW.

3) We are riveted. With prices ranging from $20 for T-Shirts to $100 for long dresses there is little to feel guilty about. Have we mentioned they are trying to save the planet?

REFORMATION SAMPLE SALE

WHEN: 6/19 – 6/24; Tue (9-8), W-Th (10-7), F-Sat (10-8), Sun (10-5)

WHERE: 260SampleSale
150 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012

Like most of us, I too have reacted with shock and disbelief at the news of Kate Spade’s death. The brand’s ubiquitous presence in New York made me feel somehow connected to the woman who had envisioned and created it. The moment I read the news I felt a painful sense of loss—the kind you’d feel for a friend. That got me thinking: she could have been my friend, a woman I could have learned from only if I’d had the chance to meet her. I mean, we were almost the same age, both transplants in New York, living just a couple of blocks away from each other. It could have happened, right? I know it’s absurd but grief wields immense power and often plants in us crazy seedling ideas that often begin with that small but might word, “If…”

I had been carrying this sadness around for the last two days, not knowing what to do with it. Today I realized that I could use it as fuel to raise awareness about other women designers and founders of successful companies on my little megaphone here… and while we’re at it, talk about their upcoming sample sales too, of course.

Stacey Bendet of Alice + Olivia and her intricate esthetic are well known to New York shoppers. What started as a student’s search for the perfect pair of pants ended being a $200 million company of which Ms. Bendet is CEO and creative director. This year sample sale (we have pics!) presents a gorgeous colorful collection and we are certain the magical world of Alice + Olivia will draw a large crowd ; we hope that crowd will be less rowdy than it’s been in the past. As you might recall, last December a fight broke out at the Alice + Olivia sample sale that made headlines on “Page Six.” The Alice + Olivia Sample Sale starts today,  June 11th at 260 Fifth Avenue.

The La Perla name is synonymous with sexy so it might come as a surprise to you the fact that the company is over 60 years old. Ada Masotti, an Italian corset-maker, nicknamed “golden scissors” for her extraordinary talent, had dreamed to start her own company, and her dream became reality in 1954. Although the company is no longer managed by Ada’s family (they sold it in 2007), she should be acknowledged as a visionary that understood that lingerie is not only functional, but also fashionable and seductive. The good news for us, bargain aficionados, is that the company has new owners as of February, which means there is a good chance this is going to be a great sample sale. La Perla Sample Sale starts on June 12th and it is hosted by 260 Sample Sales at 260 Fifth Avenue.

The list continues. Pauline Nokios is the owner and creative director of Lilla P and Leo & Sage, their sample sale takes place at 32-34 Little West 12th Street, and it is starting on June 12th. Megha Mittal is the chairwoman and managing director of the German fashion luxury brand, Escada. The Escada sample sale will be hosted at Soiffer Haskin, 317 West 33rd Street starting June 9th. There are so many more incredible women with incredible stories behind these designer tags, so although our list of sample sales stops here, the exploration behind them doesn’t have to. Your legs might give out from shopping till you drop, but your fingers are nimble enough to Google more. Go forth, learn about these genius ladies, and may your closet overfloweth to honor them!

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