The amount of noise The Row’s annual sample sale generated last weekend was perhaps antithetical to the brand’s ultimate quiet luxury status. But what else could be expected? The brand’s legions of fans swarmed for the chance to purchase coveted pieces at 75% off, some partaking in eight-hour queues.
After scoring deals, they posted about them, mostly on TikTok. They came with receipts: one TikToker got a $3,000 blazer for $750. Another paid $487.50 for a cashmere sweater that was originally $1,950. A $13,500 coat was down to $3,375. Some commenters lamented not being in the city; many more marvelled at the high prices for pieces like simple black sweaters. Content creators jumped in, with parodies of the multi-thousand-dollar hauls.
Traditionally, sample sales are how brands clear excess inventory in a (relatively) controlled environment, without letting it sit in warehouses or selling it to off-price retailers. Other crowd-drawing sample sales of late include Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Marc Jacobs and Isabel Marant, though they didn’t generate the same discourse The Row did. Brands weren’t always into the concept, says Jay Saba, who founded Privé, the third-party sample sale company that hosted The Row, back in 2002. Brands preferred to let inventory pile up than sell it off and dilute their status, he recalls. This changed in 2008 when brands, pressured by the financial crisis, fast came around to the strategy.
For more than a decade, sample sales were insulated in fashion cities like New York. Today, particularly post-Covid, they’re social media fuel as much as they are sales events, with TikTok being the key platform, says Lila Delilah, the journalist-turned-blogger behind “Madison Avenue Spy”, where she has tracked and covered luxury sample sales for 15-plus years.
“This is the New York City version of Alabama rush,” Delilah says. “I know nothing about Southern schools and rush sorority life, but I am captured every year by it. Unless you’re a New Yorker that’s very plugged into the fashion world, you don’t know about these sample sales. But now, people in Alabama are watching these unboxings from The Row and nobody gets it — but you can’t pull away.”
It has risen the stakes. In the late aughts, Saba estimates that a week-long sample sale would generate between $500,000 and $1 million in revenue. These days, for luxury brands, revenues tend to be in the “several million” range for a four or five-day event. Some brands — Saba can’t say which — make over $1 million a day. These profits are nothing to scoff at as the industry works to recoup the revenues it lost during the luxury slowdown.
Sample sales are also better for brands than being subject to the whims of wholesalers, luxury consultant Robert Burke adds. “What’s damaging for brands today is to be in a multi-brand or a department store and be marked 30% off at the beginning of the fall season,” he says. By hosting sample sales, brands can choose when — and how much — to mark down. But sample sales are no longer discreet ways to offload stock. In 2025, they’re under a social media microscope, bringing to light markups and inspiring chatter about what a piece is really worth.
As TikTokers mine sales not just for clothes, but for content, and wait times exceed the eight-hour mark, is the proliferation of sample sale content (and the publicity that comes with it) a net positive for brands?
Is all publicity good publicity?
Sample sales are big productions, even outside of TikTok. Page Six reports on the line wait times. Some of those camped out are “professional line sitters”, employed by companies like Same Ole Line Dudes, who charge $25 an hour to wait in line for sample sales (and other events that rack up long queues). The RealReal’s most recent Substack dispatch was dedicated to all of the pieces the company expects to upload to its inventory a few weeks post-sale. “You don’t need to hire a line sitter… just wait a few weeks to buy The Row and Prada!” the RealGirl, the reseller’s Substacking alias, wrote. Journalist Amy Odell called it “the least quiet thing The Row has ever done” in a post on her Substack, “The Back Row”.
The Row’s sale generated more interest than most. Saba puts this down to the tight control the brand has over distribution and communications, adding that the same goes for its sample sale. “The Row is so exacting, even how they manage their sale — we really take all instructions from the brand on that as well,” he says. Photos are usually prohibited at sample sales, much like at The Row’s fashion shows.
TikTok content
Saba acknowledges that the sales inevitably create buzz, but says that post-sale, TikTok hauls are not something Privé is on board with. “We’re never really happy when we see that, because we always try to protect the brand’s integrity,” he explains. “We prefer to put together a short-term, great event, and we kind of want it to just happen and disappear as quickly as possible. As an operator for brands, we don’t love to see all of this influencer and TikTok [content], but at the end of the day, we can’t control it.”
Hype is hype. “It brings more attention to the brand, more awareness and more desire,” Burke says. “Meaning that I want to be going to this sample sale and I want to be able to hold up this piece of whatever and say, ‘I got it for X.’” Plus, in this era, social media buzz is a signal of a brand’s desirability. A label with less prestige and exclusivity wouldn’t generate the amount of content that brands like The Row and Comme des Garçons do, Burke adds.
Though brands are not overly keen on the proliferation of video hauls, they’re a short-lived hype. “After a week, those videos will date,” blogger Delilah says. What will last is shoppers’ interest and loyalty. For Delilah, sample sales were her entry point to luxury. “As a young person, it was almost like getting a cosmetic sample. It was the gateway drug,” she says. “As I grew into being older and having more disposable income, I could buy things at the store full price, and I really appreciate the brands [from the sales] and I grew into a more loyal customer.”
TikTok content
The value question
In another corner of TikTok, users have increasingly questioned luxury’s sky-high prices relative to quality. Does sample sale content impact users’ value perception when it comes to these goods?
“It does for me,” Delilah says. It’s why she never buys a $9,000 jacket at retail. But many sample sale-goers are full-price customers, Burke notes. “I don’t think that any of these types of things make the consumer question the quality of the goods,” he says. Online viewers may query why a luxury T-shirt was originally $500-plus, but they’re not the target market anyway.
For those going to the sales, it’s what’s happening inside, not on social, that matters. At Privé, Saba is vigilant about shoppers purchasing to resell. Don’t try and buy the same pair of shoes in a 37, 38, 39. “Unless you can give me a really good reason why your mom has a different size foot than your sister and your grandma or something like that, we’re not selling [them to] you,” Saba says. The team is also careful about merchandising and crowd control, he adds. Pieces need to be in good condition, otherwise customers won’t want them — whether or not they’re at a steep discount, Saba says. It’s why Privé limits capacity inside the venue.
To ensure sample sales retain their value play — getting young, could-be full-price shoppers on board early — Saba says brands should be careful about how they market the sales in an era where social coverage magnifies their reach. Brands that advertise their sales weeks in advance are doing it wrong, he says. “We just helped James Perse with its sale in Chelsea Market two weeks ago, and that sale also was only announced a week in advance,” he says. “You don’t want customers holding out just to wait for your sample sale.”
At the end of the day, for many loyal, full-price customers, the value question is a non-starter. These customers aren’t watching TikToks from young shoppers and influencers buying seasons-old product at a discount. “There are always going to be people that just go in and don’t look at the price tag. Usually, the type of customer that doesn’t care isn’t going to a sample sale, or they’ll go for fun,” Delilah says. “It’s not like you’re stealing from one basket to feed the other.”
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