New York's Garment District

"Travel light," the travel experts advise, especially nowadays when most travelers carry their luggage on to avoid checked baggage fees. 

When I packed my smallest suitcase to accompany my husband on a 3-day business trip to New York City, I added just the minimum clothes I thought I'd need.  Rain jacket...check!  Comfortable walking shoes...check!  My backpack handbag...check! 
 

New York's Garment District
7th Avenue (known as Fashion Avenue) & 39th Street

Despite the best plans, however, it seems I always forget something. This time it was a sweater for I hoped to score two deeply-discounted-same-day theater tickets to a Broadway production of War Horse" for us, and inevitably, I always get chilly in a theater audience. Knowing that most theaters ask patrons to even unwrap any noisy candy wrappers before the opening curtain is raised, I could just envision the angry glares I would receive mid-performance tonight as I wrestled into my crackling rain jacket.

Here a Garment District workman struggles with his load of fabric bolts...

At least that's my excuse to justify how I spent my first morning in New York City's Garment District where our hotel was located.  As I sent Tim off early to his meetings, I decided to visit a samples sale in the hours I had to kill before meeting Gus, my college friend, at the TKTS ticket booth in Times Square at 2 p.m. 

Successfully manuevering through the streets of Manhattan.

According to the Budget Fashionista blog, "a sample sales is where a designer/design house/retail store sells its "sample" merchandise created to promote the designers line in fashion shows, showings to store buyers, magazines like Vogue, Elle etc." at deeply discounted prices. 

Quickly searching Google, I discovered that a samples sale of Elie Tahari clothing would open at 8:30 a.m. on the second floor of a building only a few blocks away.  Grabbing my purse, I headed out the door and quickly walked to the advertized location.  Along the way, I passed an extravaganza of wholesale and retail fabric stores that tempted the seamstress in me.

Wholesale and retail fabric stores in New York's Garment District

When I arrived at 8:50 a.m., two doormen flanked the entrance so I asked if this was where the Elie Tahari sample sale was being held.  I wanted to ask them who Elie Tahari was, too, since I didn't have a clue about NYC clothing designers, but I was trying to appear knowledgeable, despite my ignorance.  "Yes, this is the place," one answered as four more women arrived on the scene.  "Please get 'on line.'  "What?," I asked.  "Madam, please take your place on the sidewalk over there behind that stanchion and wait your turn to be admitted.  We only allow 100 customers into our sale at a time because the space is so limited.  You shouldn't have to wait too long," the doorman informed me.

Bolts and bolts of beautiful fabrics

Taking my place at the head of what quickly grew to be a lengthy line of ladies, I wondered what I'd gotten myself into, a worry that only increased as several native New Yorkers, headed to their offices, asked me whose designer sample sale this was.  "Elie Tahari's," I replied, all the while hoping that none would ask me to describe his style of clothing.  It would be too embarrassing to admit that I had no idea.  I only showed up for this novel experience and maybe a sweater.

A dazzling array of sequins and shimmer

After a half hour's wait, the doormen permitted me to enter and directed me up the stairway to the second floor.  Leading the lengthy line of ladies behind me up the stairs and into the narrow hallway, I encountered an open doorway blocked by another line barrier.  "Hmmm,"  I wondered, "are we to wait here in the hall for someone to unlatch the elastic line to let us through?"  Then, I noticed a second doorway further down the hall with an entrance sign hung above it.  Turning, I led my ladies to that door and we entered what must have been an empty floorspace now holding tons of tempting temporary racks of clothes. 

My husband Tim outside this menswear fabric store near our hotel

"Your bag, please, Madam!" Immediately inside was a temporary booth where an employee was taking the handbags of the rest of my entourage and giving each lady a claims check in return.  I, too, handed over my purse, wondering what my FBI husband would say if he knew I was surrendering my belongings to a complete stranger in the middle of New York City.  Yet, the lure of those lines of clothing racks beckoned underneath signs posted Eveningwear, Sweaters, Coats, Pants, Skirts and Blouses.

A peek inside Beckenstein's Mens Fabrics led me to ponder the budget-stretching possibility
of my tailoring Tim's suits.  Ha, ha!  As if!  Dream on!

Ladies everywhere were swishing hangers along the racks as they looked at the samples hung for perusal.  Many were trying on coats and sweaters right where they found them and then moving over to mirrors propped against the end of the racks to see how they looked.  Others were 'on line' (Ha!  I now understand NYC lingo!) as they waited to enter a curtained-off alcove labeled "Women's Fitting Room." 

Posted lists stating the prices of blouses ($19.99), sweaters ($39.99), skirts & jeans/pants ($59.99), luxury knitwear ($89.99), coats ($99.99) and eveningwear ($129.99) were displayed.  Security guards roamed the floor space and suddenly I wondered if this was a cash-only sale.  "No, major credit cards are also accepted," I was told and with that reassurance, I moved forward to attack the racks, even though I mentally admonished myself to restrict any purchase to a single needed sweater.

The sweater I purchased from Elie Tahari's samples sale

Still, I soon found a pair of jeans that appealed as well as this sweater.  Grabbing the jeans (and OK...I confess several other enticing items as well), I got 'on line' for the dressing room.  As that line inched to the curtained alcove, I chatted with the lady behind me while watching the panorama of women all over the salesroom trying on suitjackets and sweaters and coats and even blouses over their clothing. 

Upon reaching the fitting room, I was herded into an alcove that was arranged in six temporary stalls.  Ladies crammed four-deep in a each stall were communally stripping to their underwear, struggling into their finds, and trying to catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirrors propped at each end of the stalls.  Mentally cringing at the notion of participating in this semi-nudist setting while thankfully reflecting that my underwear isn't nearly as exotic as some revealed, I, too, joined in the fray.

The lack of labels inside this garment surprised me.

Other than a simple label stating designer Elie Tahari's name, the clothing had no other labels attached to them.  No fabric content information nor any care instructions...zip, zilch, nada!  "Interesting!" I thought, "No labels must be a characteristic of samples."

Designer's label

By this time, I felt a part of the sisterhood of my neighboring fashionistas.  I realized that all of them had retained their wallets and kept them in hand.  Oops!  Mine I had trustingly left in my checked bag.  Handing over my rejects to one of the two saleslady monitors and exiting the fitting alcove with my choices (sadly, these grew to three more items beyond my original limit of only a sweater), I made my way back to the check booth.

"I'm a novice," I said, "Could I please have my handbag back long enough to grab my wallet out of it?"  The attendant laughed and searched for my purse and gave it back to me.  She watched me extract my wallet from its depths before she reclaimed it once again.

Finally, I got 'on line' for the cash registers, paid for my purchases, reclaimed my purse and left as an experienced (ha!) samples sale shopper. 

I enjoyed both my foray into New York's Garment District
and my chance to see "War Horse.".

If a samples sale is in your future, I highly recommend you read About.com's Samples Sale Shopping Tips before you go, not afterwards as I did.