Feeling Like A True New Yorker - One Sample Sale At A Time

RACHEL IN THE CITY - COLUMN ONE


Sometimes, it really is the little things that make us feel like we are on our way or, in my case, that we have arrived.

The place I am trying to “arrive” is New York City. Although I moved to the city seven months ago, I still usually feel like I am an outsider, overwhelmed and fumbling through my days-just me and 8 million of my closest friends. I usually feel that I have the wrong address, took the wrong train line, was overcharged, left out, or just not at all “in the know” that this city demands that you are, all the time.

So it feels like a big victory to me this morning when, on my day off and having a relaxed read of the new “New York Magazine” my eyes land on the section of sample sales for the week. The one I zoom in on is the Barneys Warehouse sale. Up To 80% off! Too bad I missed it, I think, until a quick calculation on my finger tips corrects me. It’s today! In an hour! I can make it!

Here is where I admit I have never been to a sample sale. And also that I basically loathe shopping. I love the results of shopping, something new and fabulous that in a silly but important way can make me feel new and fabulous-it’s just that I can usually think of about a hundred things I would rather do with my limited free time than shopping in a big department store with floors and floors of ‘stuff’.

I get to the address of the sale with ten minutes to spare. I am a little surprised that I am the only one outside. Five minutes later, a woman in a security guard uniform steps out and I think she is going to open the doors and let me in, but instead, she looks at me in a bemused but not unkind way and says “honey, I think you are wanting to go around to the back, where the entrance is.”

“Oh!” and..moments later, OH! Where the usual Barneys Warehouse entrance on 18^th street where I just was had resembled a ghost town (cue the tumbleweed) the temporary entrance on 17^th street was… wow. A sea of women, AND men, in fact I was shocked to see an almost equal mix- was swishing and lurching for the doors. When they opened three minutes later, this ocean of human beings was met, immediately, by another. Before we were allowed into the store, at least 100 security guards spilled out.

They lined the street, the entrance, the stairwell, and every five feet along the strange, makeshift ‘tunnel’ that had been set up in the basement of what was usually a very well behaved department store. The first huge room was devoted to men's suits. The next five were for the women. I was, instantly, and irrevocably- overwhelmed.

Still totally new to this sort of frenzied shopping, it takes me a little while to realize how the game is played. At one point, I leave a sweater on top of a rack while I try on a shirt, about a foot away. One pull of fabric over my eyes, and the next moment I see the sweater is GONE! I think I catch a sleeve of it dangling from another woman's very large pile of clothes, as she races to the check out. Speaking of the check out, it takes me twenty minutes and three security guards to find my way there myself.

What did I end up buying? A light brown wool hat, the kind that my grandmother could make in a day with just love and four dollars of yarn, but for some reason, Barneys saw fit to have it originally priced at $150.00 (75% off at sale) and one army green colored shirt for $29, originally $149.00. Not that I didn’t want a LOT of other things, but I am not yet in the place in my life where a blazer that was once $2,180 marked down to $890 feels like a fabulous, ‘not to be missed’ deal. I can, and did, miss that.

That’s not the point. The point is, I went to my first big city, big deal, sample sale. I was at the right place, at the right time. I was officially ‘in the know’ and I knew it.

It may be a very small and silly victory over this city that challenges me to be more confident, independent and downright brave than I have ever been, but it feels like a victory none the less.

I can’t wait to see (and share) what the next week brings. And now that I have a new fancy hat, I am feeling even more ready for it.


RACHEL IN THE CITY is a bi-monthly column written by Rachel for the Girls of Giving Tree blog. She will share stories (horror and otherwise) of her new life in NYC- the worlds most fashionable, inspiring, and overwhelming place. Stay tuned.