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Don't be confused by the crowd of people around the entrance of the Rag + Bone sample sale on 16th Street—they're waiting in line for the dressing room, not for admittance. Breeze past the gaggle onto the sales floor to find...exactly what you found on the sale's opening day, minus a few bags and shoes, for the exact same prices.
With tables and racks still pretty close to the point of overflowing, we're all but convinced that Chelsea Market has a endless pit of merchandise to unleash upon us. Now the question begs: Will there be markdowns in the sale's final days this weekend? Given the number of shoppers poring over tops and skirts today, they might not have any reason to do so.
The $85 denim table for men and women on the lefthand side of the lower floor (with $75 /jean shorts) is still plentiful in light, medium, and dark rinses, with signs indicating that you should ask a sales assistant to help you find a size rather than tearing through their neatly-stacked piles. We spotted everything from a 24 to a 31 on the tables, with extra boxes of denim individually wrapped in plastic to the side.
Up in the women's section, the most popular area was a nondescript corner with one-off samples, none of which looked to bear price tags. Nothing here looked particularly notable—a lot of cotton and wrinkled styles from season's past.
The second-most crowded area was the depleted shoe section, where about two dozen individual sample shoes (read: not pairs, going for $100 each) were strewn about on a shelf, in between a staffed table where a sales associate pulled sizes of stock sandals and heels ($150—$225) and a non-staffed table of leather bags ($250) and accessories ($150).
Long leather vests and jackets ($495) drew a small crowd, as did rows of sleeveless silk tops in New York-friendly black, white, and blush ($100). Otherwise, women picked among the tees ($65), shirts and tops ($100), and sweaters ($135) folded in piles so high they looked almost ready to topple—perhaps because a $135 sweater in late June is kind of a tough sell?
Other items that are slow to move are the leather-tinged blazers, which at $200 are still pretty steep for a sample sale, and the $185 dresses, uniformly priced regardless of intricacy.
And like on opening day, men still gravitated towards table of tees ($50), button-downs ($98) and sweaters ($110) in the middle of their sale area, leaving areas like pants ($125), blazers/jackets/outerwear ($250 and up) all but deserted.
The toughest part about this sale is that even though it still feels pretty expensive in every category, the stuff that you're buying is really, really, nice, and season-less to boot. A uniform of a sleeveless silk blouse under a leather-accented blazer with skinny jeans will cost you $385, but its applications are endless in New York City. If you find yourself at Chelsea Market over the weekend, pop your head in to see if you'll be able to get this look for any less—the Dealfeed below specifies its remaining hours.