The streets of New York have a scattering of makeshift designer dumping grounds known as Sample Sale rooms randomly strewn throughout the city. They pop up without notice or fanfare in an otherwise empty store on a busy street, and you could easily walk past the hand-lettered sign out front that says simply, ‘Sample Sale’. Oftentimes there are bargain treasures to be found. Just as frequently, you get to see firsthand that designers occasionally make the same misstep as other businesses in predicting what the public might want.
Inside one of these unassuming, visually bland storefronts might be a few tables of Kenneth Cole shoes next to some racks of Calvin Klein clothes, all of which were left unsold in the designers’ workroom or over-produced for their target market. It’s not like real store shopping because the pants you love may only be present in size 2 or 12, and if you’re an 8 you just have to fall in love with something else. Fortunately, love is fickle in spring.
Daughter met me on the Upper West Side the other day following one of my doctor appointments, and on our stroll down Broadway we ducked into a Sample Sale to check it out. I pulled a pair of intriguing capris off the rack and walked behind one of the shower curtains in the back that passed for a dressing room. The designer capris I tried on were a pretty blue and resembled harem pants, only shorter. Daughter’s voice called my name from the other side of the curtain and I told her to come in.
DTR: What are these about?
OSV: They’re like harem capris. I think they fit pretty well.
DTR: I think you should take them off.
OSV: Why do you think that?
DTR: Because they make you look like a clown.
OSV: Come on, don’t sugar coat it. Say how you feel.
DTR: No, really. You need to take them off.
I love these moments in our ever-unfolding mother/daughter history that show I can still do something relatively innocuous that has the power to mortify my offspring. They’re incidents that call to mind the moment in both my children’s adolescence when I was required to drop them a block away from where they were going so their friends wouldn’t see them getting out of my 1990 Volvo 240. Ah, memories.
A number of years ago, I read an article about the ways parents unwittingly manage to embarrass their children, and one particular anecdote stayed with me. My ex-husband had a really off-key singing voice, and the kids would make him promise not to sing along with the radio when their friends were in the car. In this article, a guy who had a daughter around Son’s age was saying when he went out somewhere in public with her, she always made him swear he wouldn’t embarrass her by singing. The guy’s name was Billy Joel.
Alternate Transportation comes to mind in Daughter’s Fotos taken on Governor’s Island
