Catherine Malandrino sample sale report

This morning I hit up the Catherine Malandrino sample sale. I got in line around 10:30, and there were maybe 40 girls in front of me. They are carefully monitoring occupancy, letting people in only 10 at a time; it took me about 20 minutes. I would highly recommend that you not bring anything but your wallet if possible. Otherwise you waste precious minutes checking in your bag or coat. A quick glance into the bag/coat check room revealed impressive rows of bags: Gucci, Miu Miu, YSL... girls in New York definitely have style!

Should you go? Yes! The selection is fantastic, honestly, and the price points are good. The staff is lovely and let me take a photo of the pricing list, and for dresses, you're looking at a 65-75% discount. After much deliberating, I scored a red silk shirt dress for $125 (retail $475). There were only a few leather dresses though, so don't get too excited. The area is expansive and it takes a while to get oriented. There's an area for tops, then skirts (very few) and a rack of pants.

Then the dresses are in 2 'rows': one of P/S/M/L and one of sizes. In the far back corner there is even a little niche of samples, size S. Dressing room is large and communal, so wear good underwear! Oh, and if you want a dress, go soon. I will probably swing by again on Friday to dig through tops (the worst organized area, and you'll see why when you go). Let's hope they do a last-day discount!



See more photos pf the merchandise and layout below

A very large space, filled with Catherine Malandrino goodies!
Shoppers ecstatically pile clothes over their arms
The size 4 dress section

The three dresses I deliberated for an hour, frantically SMSing my friend in Chicago for wisdom. The silk shirt dress just looked so nice on! In the end I took the red one-- I really have tons of black dresses... I put the yellow one down b/c although it is super cute, there's the Shanghai Tang sale tomorrow...