Sample Sale Report: Steven Alan

There's a bonanza of sample sales going on right now. You could go to a different one  every day this weekend.
Somehow, we never managed to make it to Steven Alan's sale, but this season we decided to make a concerted effort. Though we heard reports of horrible lines earlier in the day, by mid-afternoon there was only a short queue of three or four people being slowly admitted by a security guard with no apparent method. (Three people leave. One goes in. Six people leave. One goes in.)
Once inside, the sale holds an abundance of the checked shirts and khaki pants that made Alan the fashionable anti-fashion designer of choice for stylish Manhattanites. It's J.Crew with the slight edge that makes it cost four times as much. Except, that is at the sample sale, where the goods are marked down to J.Crew prices.
As sales go, it follows the classic pattern. Held in Alan's showroom space, down the street from his Franklin Street boutique, it is cramped, crowded and frenzied with lots of anxious grabbing and rummaging. The street level is mostly devoted to the Steven Alan label, hence the endless rack of plaid shirts.
Downstairs there is an equally abundant selection of other labels like Cool Hunting People, Hyden Yoo, Gilded Age and others. People furtively try things on in corners. The stacks of women's shoe boxes were naturally a busy spot with shoes flying, but the staff managed to keep things relatively in order by operating the two levels as separate stores. That's right. Shop downstairs, then pay and check your bag so you can shop upstairs and pay again. For a Thursday afternoon it was very busy, so we can't imagine what kind of mess it will be over the weekend, though one saving grace might be the big sale at A.P.C. in Williamsburg that could pull people away.
Oh who are we kidding, you'll go to both.
Steven Alan Showroom Sale 87 Franklin Street between Church Street and Broadway, Tribeca
A.P.C. Big Sale 35 Grand St., near Kent Avenue, Williamsburg