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The year 1990 didn’t only mark a new decade, but the start of an initiative that connected all corners of the American fashion scene—Seventh on Sale. It was a four-day shopping event, organized by Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, at the Lexington Armory in Manhattan. Bringing together a legion of brands and designers such as Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass—each with their own booths on the floor—who donated their designs and collectible pieces to be sold at steeply discounted prices, the inaugural event sparked a complete fashion frenzy. A sea of shoppers queued up around the venue’s block in hours-long lines alongside trailers stuffed with merchandise, ready for to restock.
But this was no Black Friday sale with the spendy chaos we’re used to today: It was an event born out of fashion’s desperate need to act amid the devastating impact of the AIDS crisis. “We lost so many people to AIDS. It’s difficult to describe just how hard it was to lose your friends like that,” Donna Karan tells Vogue now. “Seventh on Sale dressed and addressed what was happening in the world.”
Between the first reported case of AIDS in 1981 to 1990, the fashion world suffered immeasurable losses. Halston, Willi Smith, Perry Ellis, Antonio Lopez, Patrick Kelly, and Chester Weinberg, to name only some, lost their lives to AIDS. And it wasn’t just fashion figureheads, of course, but friends, neighbors, colleagues, and hairstylists, too. “For so many of us, there was this growing sense that we had to do whatever we could to fight back,” Anna Wintour says—a feeling that propelled her, along with Karan, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Carolyne Roehm, all of whom had been having conversations together and separately about the crisis, to spearhead the initiative as a team.
An army of industry leaders, countless volunteers, and an opening-night benefit attended by the likes of David Bowie brought about the four-day shopping spree. In the end, the event not only raised over $4 million, but became a blueprint for fashion activism.
Beyond raising vital funds for the cause, Seventh on Sale also made significant progress toward dismantling the wall of stigma around AIDS, one that both silenced conversations that needed to be had and stifled compassion for those who needed it most. “What people perhaps don’t realize about the early days of HIV and AIDS was that, despite us being in the midst of a terrifying and relentless pandemic, very few people ever spoke about it aloud, either through fear or prejudice or both,” says Wintour. “It took President Reagan years to even utter the word AIDS, let alone acknowledge the devastation it was wreaking.
“Despite how awful that time was, Seventh on Sale was cathartic. People were finally able to open up, mourn publicly, and find a kind of happiness in the satisfaction to be had from taking action,” Wintour continued. “Through Seventh on Sale, we as an industry found our voice; we’d broken the silence.”
Following the success of the original event, two iterations followed suit—landing first in San Francisco in 1992, and then in New York again in 1995. As the AIDS crisis continued to grip the world, Seventh on Sale gained unprecedented momentum, attracting the endorsements of celebrities like Richard Gere (who was seen excitedly shouting about the unbelievable price at which Donna Karan was selling a fringed jacket) and corporate backing from companies like Gap.
“I think the memories that have stayed with me most were just how hands-on the designers were. It was like a trunk show on steroids!” reflects Fern Mallis, who helped assemble the latter two events as the then executive director of the CFDA. “Diane von Furstenberg, Isaac Mizrahi, Tommy Hilfiger—they were all there, meeting, advising, and helping people pick things out, which the customers absolutely loved. I don’t think an event like that could ever happen again. Just like Studio 54 or the NYFW Bryant Park tents, it was a complete one-off.”
The two events raised over $4 million, which was distributed by the New York City AIDS Fund to HIV/AIDS organizations. A decade later, in 2005, a relaunch of the event—available for the first time online through eBay—garnered an additional $1.2 million.
In the right hands, fashion is a striking, provocative, rallying visual tool. AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) harnessed just that in their campaign imagery, which joined other gay rights groups in reclaiming the fuchsia triangle—once used to identify gay men for persecution and internment during World War II—and setting it against a black background to create one of the most recognizable symbols of the LGBTQ+ community. The image was printed on sobering slogan T-shirts that read “Silence=Death.”
The CFDA continues to support HIV/AIDS charities to this day. “The commitment has stayed with us,” CFDA CEO Steve Kolb tells Vogue. In 2019, the organization revived the HIV/AIDS fundraiser Love Ball III with the help of Susanne Bartsch, raising $500,000 that was divided between eight NYC-based HIV/AIDS-related organizations. “From the early days through to events like the Love Ball, which helped raise critical funds and honor the legacy of those we lost, supporting HIV/AIDS causes remains a core part of our values,” says Kolb.
Seventh on Sale set off a wave of HIV/AIDS initiatives. In 1994, Maison Martin Margiela became one of the first fashion houses to actively support an AIDS charity, the French organization AIDES, designing a simple V-neck shirt that read: “THERE IS MORE ACTION TO BE DONE TO FIGHT AIDS THAN WEAR THIS T-SHIRT BUT IT’S A GOOD START.” The brand has reissued it in various languages and colorways every year since. Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli (then at the helm of Valentino) designed a one-off golden couture gown that was auctioned off at the Cannes amfAR Gala in 2013 for Cinema Against Aids. In 2020, Gucci launched a longterm partnership with mother2mothers, a project supporting women living with HIV in Ghana. Katharine Hamnett’s spring 2024 show centered around graphic T-shirts printed with the phrase “use a condom” and a diamanté sheer vest worn by Naomi Campbell; and last year, the Elton John AIDS Foundation hosted the opening night of The Devil Wears Prada on the West End, which coincided with World AIDS Day, as a fundraising gala.
The world today is a very different place than it was 35 years ago, but not all the medical advancements around HIV/AIDS diagnosis and prevention are accessible to all. This year alone, the Trump administration has also cut 145 grants allocated to HIV/AIDS research, as well as a program crucial to discovering lifesaving HIV vaccines—derailing decades of progress.
The first Seventh on Sale may have been decades ago, but activism is stitched into the seams of today’s fashion industry. Michael Kors, a continued supporter of HIV/AIDS-related charities such as God’s Love We Deliver, puts it like this: “The AIDS pandemic was the first time the industry banded together to focus on issues that were bigger than style and fashion. Seventh on Sale initiated this, and we see it continue all these years later with the industry speaking up about so many issues, from human rights to sustainability, to getting the message out that people need to vote.”