The haute sort of marketplace....

Well, it wasn't exactly Vivienne Westwood sample sale proportions (queues from 6am in the morning... I kid you not...) but it was still a pretty decent turnout at 10.30am today at Victoria for the Dover Street Market Market.... aka a Comme des Garcons AW04-SS07 archive sale. Especially since the weather was so rubbish and because I thought a lot of people might have overdone it with the slew of sample sales that had gone before (the Chanel sample sale must have dented many pockets quite a bit.... fortunately/unfortunately I didn't get an invite...). As it turned out, the sale had a quite male-heavy turnout which is rare for a sample sale, and especially as the Hong Kong/Japanese dude CdG fans turned up in droves...

Like I said though, it wasn't too bad of a wait and once in, it was all light airy space at the Phillip de Pury auction house with literally rails and rails of Comme des Garcons ready to have some serious rummaging through. Everyone got given a Hong Kong-style 'market' bag to load up on their wares though the boyf and I were slightly bemused as neither of us thought we were going to accumulate a haul to fill them up. Funnier still that I saw people struggling with TWO of them filled to the brim. Clearly people were clued up as to how bargainous this sale was going to be and decided to have a big blow out. Simple pricing, all the CdG pieces are 70% off and all non CdG pieces (Margiela, Boudicca, Nina Ricci, Pierre Hardy, Jens Laugesen, Raf Simons were some of the stuff i spotted...) are 80% off. I use present tense because the sale is still on tomorrow so I would get ye down there if you're a Londoner as new deliveries are promised...

I discovered my mental arithmetic was basically shit as I had to divide everything by 10 and then multiply it by three or two to get the actual sale price. With all the mathematics going on and the fact that there were so many many many rails, I actually didn't fare that well, leaving me rather glum and craving a Beard Papa's cream puff. It was the usual tale of 'They didn't have my size' and 'All the REALLY nice things are too pricy'... the mind boggled as I saw people taking things off the rails without even trying them on and shoving them in their market bag.... as bargainous as everything was in comparison to the original prices, it's still about £200-£300 for a real showpiece sort of jacket. For me, it was probably a simple case of there being too much choice... still, a mental field day worth having and interesting to see the variety of CdG fans out there...

I came away with one calculated thing and one random thing. The calculated thing being these Tao (part of the CdG group) knitted peach shorts which I had wanted ever since I saw them in DSM in the first place. I've had a fixation on chunky knitted shorts forever. I think it may have been a random Fruits streetstyle pic that triggered it and I had only ever seen Tao do them perfectly so. From £200 to £60 ain't bad and they're just perfect for ice-cream colour matching with...

The random buy were these navy sheer mesh trousers by Raf Simons that were truly bargainous at £15 and yes, I realise they are menswear but to be honest, the whole sale was a bit sort of blurred with men trying on the womens stuff and women nabbing oversized shirts in the mens bit. Plus they mark the beginning of my other trew fixation; sheer/mesh skinny trousers. These are baggy but I love them rolled up...

So it wasn't a mega haul but even though I'm despondently scoffing my Beard Papa cream puff with my two paltry buys, I'd still recommend looking into the sale if you can...