Manolo Blahnik's Sample Sale Is a Stiletto-Strewn Hellscape of Hoarding, Aggression

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The Manolo Blahnik sample sale—once a calm affair, where Andre Leon Talley might advise you on which pumps to buy—is now overrun with hoarders, a tipster tells us. "I've been to the Manolo sale five or six times now, if my shoe memory serves correctly, and this is the most insane I've ever seen it," she writes. "I got my ticket at 8am, left to go do some work, came back at 12 and was let in around 12:15. They had to move everyone into one conference room because of a maintenance issue in the other one so it was cramped and tense. From the sounds of the people who waited there all day, they're taking longer to call numbers than in years past. But I would've happily waited longer to give the staff a chance to clean up because inside is a MESS."

It gets worse! "This is the rowdiest sale crowd I've encountered at Manolo," our tipster continues. "They are stealing shoes from one another and throwing them back onto tables aggressively. I'm no pushover at a sample sale, but wow these people were intense. It was the worst case of hoarding I have seen at a sale, including that crazy Hermes sale where people kept grabbing ties. This was worse than Lilly for Target hoarding, too."

The hoarders hijacked the plastic bins under the tables, and used them to hold their loot. "These are the big bins, like for moving," the tipster clarifies. "Not those thin under-the-bed bins." She writes, "Some people were just pushing piles of shoes off the table and into their bin. One of the employees tried to intervene by telling people that they shouldn't do that. He tried to make a formal announcement. It did not work. An older man had an entire bin with three huge plastic bags of shoes overflowing out of it. Turns out he had TWO OTHER BINS just like it. The cashier said he was definitely an eBay reseller."

If that doesn't deter you, then here's a breakdown of what you'll find: "50% pointy heels (mostly in dark colors), 20% boots of varying heel heights (some open-toe), 10% wedding shoes, 10% pointy flats, 5% flat sandals, and 5% very confusing shoes." Most sizes below 40 have been seriously pillaged, but those who wear a 41 or above may have some luck. Godspeed, friends.