How the sample sale became fashion’s newest subculture

A few weeks ago, I spent a very rainy few hours queuing for Molly Goddard’s sample sale. Decked out in leggings and a holey hoodie, I hadn’t considered that I would be expected to turn a look while rummaging through the tulle. However, as a photographer working for the brand started snapping people in the line, it became clear that the sample sale is no longer a place to shop but a place to be seen. Advertised on Instagram to over the designer’s 360k followers, it’s not surprising the queue snaked all the way up Bethnal Green Road. Eager shoppers were happy to queue for hours in the drizzle, and while sample sales were previously industry-only events, Instagram and TikTok have opened the floodgates. These sales have become social and cultural hubs, with attendees there for networking and content creation as much as cut-price garms. Coupled with the birth of dedicated accounts like @showcase.co and brands attuning to the marketing potential of the sale, the humble bargain hunt is now an immersive hybrid IRL-online experience and definitely not for the faint-hearted.

The recent DSM’s ’Market Market’ sale is another example of this, with people queuing from 4am just to get their hands on some discount Comme des Garçons or a pair of hypebeast sneaks. Despite the crazy queues, the crowds kept flocking and the content machine kept churning, something taking over the sleep-deprived CSM students and incentivising them to keep coming back day after day. Speaking to writer and cultural researcher @quiestnina, the draw becomes evident. Nina explains, “What happens in the brain is very similar to when a child goes to an indoor playground. Within the first ten minutes, they’re going to go crazy and have a fight with another kid, because it burns all common sense in our mind. That’s how an adult is at a sample sale.”

It’s true; who among us has not lost their head to the sound of Madonna and the sight of a sale, the fervour building until you’re so desperate to get out that you’ve rationalised maxing out your overdraft on that ultra-rare oversized dress you’ll never wear. Unlike the isolated, mundane act of online shopping, the sample sale is intended to be an immersive experience, with brands clocking in on the idea of creating community through these mass gatherings and seeing their shoppers all together in one place. Often enhanced by the employees as well as the settings, these sales are set up to embody the brand. While Simone Rocha blasted out Bach, Shrimps kept it light with some Kylie and Paloma Wool ensured the nondescript ambient tunes were flowing. It’s a sales ploy and it works. These brands are making unwanted clothes appealing by creating a culture to buy into and presenting attendees with aesthetic opportunities to snap content and create hype at every moment.

The now infamous DSM sale encapsulates this. Whether you wanted to buy something or not was beside the point. The point was you were there, and you weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to make a #dsmhaul TikTok or “what went down at DSM” YouTube vid after queuing for six hours on your work-from-home day. As sale survivor @miraalmomani puts it, “These sales are now used to create ’hype’ moments in fashion, making a huge buzz online around them on socials as these events that you wouldn’t dream of missing. Actually, going isn’t so important – but letting people know you went through a social media post? That’s the important bit.”

The evolution of these sales demonstrates how we have transformed shopping into a spectacle, with consumerism now seen as an opportunity for content creation. Despite my efforts to avoid the interviewer in the Molly Goddard queue, lots of people were happy to get in on the action. For many young people, this constant documenting, interviewing and creating is standard practice and these snaking, often soggy queues are the prime place to pull a fit check and get chatting to someone behind a camera. “I think for some people, that is an opportunity to be seen online and they seize it.” says Nina “A lot of stuff these days is motivated by fame and people go there to network.”

In an industry where everything can feel a bit like a business transaction, it makes sense that people are using these events to win friends and influence people. Looking beyond the individual, brands and publications are picking up on the potential of short-form journalism sale content too. These crowds are prime places to meet and assess your audience and analyse what they’re actually wearing, saying and thinking out in the wild. A shift beyond just the shopping, these gatherings have morphed into IRL-internet meet-ups for once-online internet subcultures. It’s fun to see scenes off the screen and in the wild, the bloquettes and the clean girls forming their own factions in real life like some sort of Harry Potter sorting-house situation.

Similarly, the rise of celebrity closet sales has created a cult both on and offline. Fans are now proving their devotion by demonstrating just how long they’re willing to queue for a chance to drop the cash on one of their fave’s discarded tees. Look at the absolute chaos that online descended when Chloë Sevigny announced her “Sale of The Century”, with many femcel-fans (myself included, briefly) considering the cost of a trip to New York just to snag a scarf or a pair of socks worn by the It-girl herself.

Similarly, reports from inside the sale are of Chloë herself wafting around, looking impossibly chic and regaling attendees with when and where she wore a particular item and why they absolutely had to buy it. By sharing her scandalous stories and giving life to the garms, Chloë made the clothes more than just fabric. As with all these sales, it’s the context that makes it important. Creating a culture and image around a collection, whether it’s a warehouse sale in London or a closet clear out on the Upper East Side, makes the pieces an important mark of social capital, causing you to part with your money over something you might not otherwise look twice at.

By transforming sample sales into immersive cultural events immortalised by social media, Gen Z is proving that they want to be out and about, to be seen and be in the know. There is a deeper pull beyond purchasing and whether it’s a need to get some good content or meet a new connection isn’t entirely clear but as long as celebs have shit to sell and brands have stock to shift, the queues will keep forming and the content will keep on coming.