Twenty six pounds of clothes

Please excuse my mess of clothes. Oh wait, these aren’t my messes… these are baby clothes! 26 pounds of baby clothes, if you really want to count!

Now how/why did I possibly amass so many clothes? Well… let’s blame  Jade. She ever-so-graciously took pity on my bargain hunting soul and invited me to a Gymboree company sample sale last Thursday. Thank goodness for a mutual love of NKOTB and all kinds of other things in common… because I not only got to shop the sale, but also meet up with her in person (which was the best part!).

Now, while you may be familiar with online sample sales as a glamorous affair, I’m much more used to the sample sales in showrooms/warehouses in downtown LA where you pick and dig through clothes in search of what you want. My first “sample sale” was in NYC at the tender age of 14, when we visited my cousin’s purse showroom on 5th Avenue… which she shared with the jewelry designer Robert Rose. They graciously pulled up a giant cardboard box marked “SAMPLE” and just told us to pick out something we wanted inside. When I saw the necklace I picked out at Macy’s many many months later, I can honestly say I was hooked on how darn cool it was to own a sample. If you live in Los Angeles, it’s worth it to spend one Friday of your life at the New Mart sample sales – usually in December they’re open every Friday! My wardrobe lived and died by those sales when I lived there… trust me they’re awesome!

ANYHOW, back to the matter of last Thursday! I went into “the city” with my pal Michelle, and while she whisked Baby M away to warmth and entertainment at a nearby Starbucks, I went inside an empty retail space and filled bags to the brim with baby clothes. Just imagine piles that are 5′ wide by 75′ long… with women (and like 2 men) just digging through them for what they want. They stash the ones they want in a garbage bag and toss the others to the side as they seek for hidden treasure. It reminded me a lot of a challenge on The Amazing Race… especially because we only had an hour to shop!

At the end of my hour I wound up with 26 pounds of clothing (as measured by their scales)… and I paid a whole $5/lb. for those wares. $130 later I was stuffing them into the bottom of our stroller and recounting the insanity to my dear pal Michelle. And when I got home, I tried my best to sort them into sizes, gender (yes… some little boys I know definitely deserve some presents!), and whatever else I could think of. In counting up the hangtags, I’m pretty certain I got about 82 items at the sale… which is pretty insane. Now, some of them do have “SAMPLE” stamped in ink on them (which I will attempt to remove this week), but others are super new and good to go!

Let’s just say that Baby M is going to have some fun dress up clothes in her closet for some time to come! Thank you Jade!