Ladies and gentlemen, get your running shoes out and your boxing gloves on.
C’est les soldes!Today marks the beginning of the fabled twice-annual deep-discount French sales.
Fabled, you might ask? Let’s just say that even
Cendrillion can find a dress or two to go with those glass stilettos as prices fall to rock-bottom over the 5-week sales period.
And why the boxing gloves? If it’s anything like last year’s
Zadig and Voltaire’s markdowns, you’ll need ‘em. Normally prim and proper 16th arondissement
demoiselles morphed into banshees as they duked it out over cashmere sweaters – even resorted to slugging each other with their Hermès Birkin bags to get at the last ELVIS-logo pullover.
Trust me, those sapphire-and-diamond rings can do some damage. Better come with a game plan.
Here are La Mom’s tips for making the most of the summer
soldes:
1) Plan your attack. Get in touch with your inner Napoléon and map out your strategy. This is war, baby, so get used to it. La Mom’s personal picks this year are:
Comptoir de Cotonniers for their juicy prints and structured linen dresses
Les Petites for their basics in a vivid palette (check out the ink blue)
Anne Fontaine – because you always need a crisp white shirt
2) If you love it, buy it.Don’t bother looking around at another store to see if they have a better price or wait until it’s marked down even further. If you find something you like in your size, snap it up
immédiatement! Stores have problems keeping sizes in stock at the best of times, and it’s even worse during the sales.
3) Think like a Frenchwoman.
Parisiennes never buy because the price is right. It’s because they’ve found the perfect pair of shoes for their cocktail dress, or that gold clutch they’ve been hunting for two seasons straight. They only buy what they need – and what makes them look great,
bien sûr!
4) Break out your new vocabulary. It’s inevitable – if you get a great deal, someone’s bound to be jealous. Just make sure you have the
Français to make the loser pardon their French.
Here’s what happened to La Mom at the winter soldes:
Parisienne No° Une: She’s trying on the last size 38!
Parisienne No° Deux: Salope.
La Mom: Oui, la belle salope who just got the last Yves Saint Laurent LBD at 80% off!
