If you live in Los Angeles and haven’t been to the Cooper Design Space Last Friday Sales, you are missing out! On the last Friday of each month (day after tomorrow), select showrooms open their doors to the public and offer discounts on samples, overstock and past season styles. There is a mix of permanent and pop-up showrooms and not every brand does a sale each month, so there’s always a new variety of sales to shop.
The Beyond Yoga sample sale is this weekend at Smashbox Studios in Culver City. The luxury athleisure/yoga brand is known for their body-positive messaging with sizes XXS-XXL. This sale is two days and only happens once a year. Plus, any sample sale that does not make me drive to Hollywood or Beverly Hills is already a winner in my book!
Between a month of super slow Poshmark sales and spring sample sale season, I’ve tried to pull back on my thrifting this month. I’ve limited my Goodwill runs to once a week and focused on only buying either high-end pieces or taking advantage of sales such as Goodwill SoCal’s $2 day. I honestly hadn’t found a ton that got me super excited lately. I’d walked out of thrift stores without buying anything several times, which is kind of unheard of for me. However, I finally struck gold and found these beauties that nearly made my heart stop! Drum-roll please…
Show Me Your Mumu jumpsuits and dresses have become my go-to pieces for easy weekend style. Therefore, the Show Me Your Mumu sample sale is one of my absolute favorites of the season. Their retail prices tend to be on the pricey side, so when they start slashing prices at Mumu HQ, the LA Mu girls go a bit crazy.
The Matisse sample sale is one of my favorite shoes sales I shop. You might not recognize the Matisse Footwear name right off the bat, but I’m sure you’ve seen their edgy, western-influenced shoes and boots at Free People, Anthropologie or Nordstrom. Their headquarters are about fifteen minutes from me, so I’m even guilty of stopping by their bi-annual sales multiple times. I stock up on shoes for my personal collection, shop for family and friends and buy a few pairs to resell as well.
As I was standing in line for a recent sample sale, I looked at all the women ahead of me in line. You could pick out some of the sample sale rookies vs. the vets. As I drag more and more of my friends to fight through the crowds with me, I thought it might be fun to share some quick tips on how to survive and thrive in the chaos that is a sample sale.
Thrifting, resale shops, consignment shops, whatever you want to call it, I love it. Los Angeles definitely does not disappoint in killer deals on designer duds. I’ve been in LA three months, and I’ve already found the consignment stores where film studios donate clothes from there sets and designers donate their samples, resulting is super cheap, new or like new wardrobe steals. Not to mention La La Land is home to a plethora of fashionistas who, apparently, dump clothes after a few wears as well. Jackpot.
Here is a look at some of my scores so far as well as what they cost me to purchase verses what I would’ve paid in stores (if I was willing to pay that much).
Earlier this year, I was at the Houston Livestock and Rodeo waiting for a concert to start when I saw a girl a few rows in front of me wearing a plaid flannel shirt with sequins. I’m similar to a moth- I am attracted to anything shiny. I decided I had to have a sparkly shirt like hers, so when I got home I started Googling and was dismayed when I couldn’t find one for under $50.
So I decided to make my own, and now you can make your very own too!
Months ago, I sat down and filled out a Stitch Fix style profile. Then I walked away. My coworkers got their fixes and raved about the pieces they received, so I went back to the site and filled out the billing information, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I love shopping. I also love subscription based shopping because I LOVE surprises. Seriously, any kind of grab bag type deal, I’m all in. Even though I know stores throw all the crap they can’t sell into a bag, mark it down and call it a grab bag, I cannot resist. But I digress.
I’ve had a Birchbox subscription since the time when you had to know someone who had it and get a referral code to join. Then you had to wait a few months until they could accommodate another customer. So after repeatedly complimenting a coworker’s clothes and being told they were Stitch Fix, I bit the bullet and ordered my first fix.
