Review of LB warehouse sale 2012
I dragged my sleep-deprived body to the LB warehouse sale on Thursday morning after having decided last-minute at 2am to make a trip down with my friend. We were supposed to meet at 10.15am at Raffles Place MRT but I was late because I kept snoozing my alarm >< and the morning rain didn't help the traffic at all.
Anyway, I still reached around 10.40am (the sale launched at 11am) as the place (One Raffles Place) was pretty easy to find. When I arrived, there was already a room full of girls sitting around and waiting (much like fangirls camping in a corner at Changi Airport or at concert venues haha) outside the sale venue. Just then, the LB crew told them that they could start going into the sale venue to get their bags tied up, while the rest (who arrived after the waiting room had been filled up) had to continue queuing outside sale venue. The advantages of being an early bird!
So since my friend who reached around 10.20am was not one of those in the waiting room, I proceeded to join her in the long queue of girls outside the sale venue. The wait was not too long though - before long, we also reached the door of the sale venue and were greeted by the LB bosses who flashed everyone their ready smiles and personally handed out LB recyclable bags for us to put our shopping items into! :) A+ for being personable!
The tying up of bags was not an inconvenience at all for me because I was carrying a small backpack which the LB crew said was not necessary to be tied up. But in any case, the process didn't seem to take long for the rest as well. Once we were fully able to access the sale items, I rushed to the first rack in front of me which was full of dresses and just filtered according to colours and prints. The items on the racks were randomly arranged, so you really just had to be quick at sieving through the stuff and spotting what you want. I grabbed the Grandiose Sylph Bustier in Black (see the rose-printed black dress below) within the first minute 'cause I've seen it on websites before and had been contemplating seriously about buying it from second-hand sellers! :)
After about 1 or 1.5 hours of trawling through all the items, I ended up with 5 dresses but threw back 2 after reviewing them. My friend went home with 2 tops. I would say the prices are not to-die-for, and the sale items are not fantastic as they are all from the old collections. And don't expect to find those popular designs which were sold out on the website. You might be able to find about 1 or 2 good designs if you are really really lucky. The prices are as follows: $20 for Covet labels, $18 for dresses and shoes, $15 for tops, bottoms and bags, $10 for all BonitoChico and unlabelled items. So obviously the BC items were really really dated and it is not only about the age of the design. I have no qualms with wearing clothes that are many years old as long as they are still fashionable (especially those with classic designs or cuts). But the BC items on sale were those that you would not be wearing now (think satin bustier dresses with elastic band at the back and no, they are not the classy kind of satin). Those are just forgone fashion and should not be added to your wardrobe even if they only cost $10 each.
The good news is I think they did restock their sale items from time to time, which was perhaps why, when my friend and I were preparing to check out, we saw pieces that we were interested in which we hadn't seen before when we were carefully going through the racks. So if you are lucky, you might just grab something really pretty! :)
The checking-out process took a while because they only had a few cashier counters (if I remember correctly, about 2?). But we were lucky that the queue started elongating like a monster only after us, so we only waited for about 5 minutes. We managed to exit before the lunch crowd started coming in, thankfully! When we left, there was already a long long queue of office ladies queuing outside the sale venue and the queue did not seem to be moving at all!
My loots, all at $18 each! :)
This is a really great buy! When I was checking out, the auntie at the cashier counter was checking the label carefully to make sure it really wasn't a Covet piece. :)
I like the floral design of this dress which makes it timeless! I can imagine myself still wearing this some years later. The only drawback is that this dress is a bit tight on me. Also, I later discovered that although the side zip can technically still function, there is a slight chip on the teeth so there is one particular part on the zip which is harder to zip through. I will have to be very careful with it.
Now this looks like any other floral tank dress, but I like that the material is a thicker and better kind of cotton (not sure if you can tell from the second photo) which should make it more lasting and the dress has an inner lining.
Overall I was quite happy with my loots, but I had a friend who wanted to go for the LB sale on Saturday and I advised her to forget about it. I think she might have had to queue with a huge crowd on a Saturday and I guess the good stuff might have been gone by the last day of the sale already. My verdict: only go if you have a lot of time and if you really want to go, GO EARLY!!!
(Sorry that this post comes in too late for those who were contemplating whether to go for the sale this year or not, but hopefully it might come in handy for people who are interested in the next LB warehouse sale! :))
Also posted in http://bestofshopping.livejournal.com/.
Anyway, I still reached around 10.40am (the sale launched at 11am) as the place (One Raffles Place) was pretty easy to find. When I arrived, there was already a room full of girls sitting around and waiting (much like fangirls camping in a corner at Changi Airport or at concert venues haha) outside the sale venue. Just then, the LB crew told them that they could start going into the sale venue to get their bags tied up, while the rest (who arrived after the waiting room had been filled up) had to continue queuing outside sale venue. The advantages of being an early bird!
So since my friend who reached around 10.20am was not one of those in the waiting room, I proceeded to join her in the long queue of girls outside the sale venue. The wait was not too long though - before long, we also reached the door of the sale venue and were greeted by the LB bosses who flashed everyone their ready smiles and personally handed out LB recyclable bags for us to put our shopping items into! :) A+ for being personable!
The tying up of bags was not an inconvenience at all for me because I was carrying a small backpack which the LB crew said was not necessary to be tied up. But in any case, the process didn't seem to take long for the rest as well. Once we were fully able to access the sale items, I rushed to the first rack in front of me which was full of dresses and just filtered according to colours and prints. The items on the racks were randomly arranged, so you really just had to be quick at sieving through the stuff and spotting what you want. I grabbed the Grandiose Sylph Bustier in Black (see the rose-printed black dress below) within the first minute 'cause I've seen it on websites before and had been contemplating seriously about buying it from second-hand sellers! :)
After about 1 or 1.5 hours of trawling through all the items, I ended up with 5 dresses but threw back 2 after reviewing them. My friend went home with 2 tops. I would say the prices are not to-die-for, and the sale items are not fantastic as they are all from the old collections. And don't expect to find those popular designs which were sold out on the website. You might be able to find about 1 or 2 good designs if you are really really lucky. The prices are as follows: $20 for Covet labels, $18 for dresses and shoes, $15 for tops, bottoms and bags, $10 for all BonitoChico and unlabelled items. So obviously the BC items were really really dated and it is not only about the age of the design. I have no qualms with wearing clothes that are many years old as long as they are still fashionable (especially those with classic designs or cuts). But the BC items on sale were those that you would not be wearing now (think satin bustier dresses with elastic band at the back and no, they are not the classy kind of satin). Those are just forgone fashion and should not be added to your wardrobe even if they only cost $10 each.
The good news is I think they did restock their sale items from time to time, which was perhaps why, when my friend and I were preparing to check out, we saw pieces that we were interested in which we hadn't seen before when we were carefully going through the racks. So if you are lucky, you might just grab something really pretty! :)
The checking-out process took a while because they only had a few cashier counters (if I remember correctly, about 2?). But we were lucky that the queue started elongating like a monster only after us, so we only waited for about 5 minutes. We managed to exit before the lunch crowd started coming in, thankfully! When we left, there was already a long long queue of office ladies queuing outside the sale venue and the queue did not seem to be moving at all!
My loots, all at $18 each! :)
This is a really great buy! When I was checking out, the auntie at the cashier counter was checking the label carefully to make sure it really wasn't a Covet piece. :)
I like the floral design of this dress which makes it timeless! I can imagine myself still wearing this some years later. The only drawback is that this dress is a bit tight on me. Also, I later discovered that although the side zip can technically still function, there is a slight chip on the teeth so there is one particular part on the zip which is harder to zip through. I will have to be very careful with it.
Now this looks like any other floral tank dress, but I like that the material is a thicker and better kind of cotton (not sure if you can tell from the second photo) which should make it more lasting and the dress has an inner lining.
Overall I was quite happy with my loots, but I had a friend who wanted to go for the LB sale on Saturday and I advised her to forget about it. I think she might have had to queue with a huge crowd on a Saturday and I guess the good stuff might have been gone by the last day of the sale already. My verdict: only go if you have a lot of time and if you really want to go, GO EARLY!!!
(Sorry that this post comes in too late for those who were contemplating whether to go for the sale this year or not, but hopefully it might come in handy for people who are interested in the next LB warehouse sale! :))
Also posted in http://bestofshopping.livejournal.com/.