“I live, die, and breathe fashion, and fashion doesn’t love me back,” said Ana Escalante, who had been sitting on the corner of West Houston and Broadway in downtown New York since 4:45 a.m. “Every time I go to a sample sale or closet sale, I run to the accessories, and it’s kind of sad when I think about that. Ninety-nine percent of the stuff isn’t going to fit me.”
But that was about to change. Escalante, who brought a friend, was first on line for the “for the girls” closet sale. Sure, it seems like everyone in New York is selling their stuff, Chloë Sevigny and Jenna Lyons most recently. But this time, model Paloma Elsesser and stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson were offering up their wares of incredible designer pieces in sizes ranging to a U.S. 22.
“This is really one of the first times there’s been an inclusive-sizing closet sale,” Escalante says. So she didn’t mind the wait she had ahead of her. She was “not playing around.” “When Paloma and Gabriella and all the other wonderful women opened their archives and have clothes from a 10 to a 22, that’s so rare.”
Elsesser and Karefa-Johnson, along with Steff Yotka, Lynette Nylander, Ariella Starkman, and Daphne Seybold, who also hosted the sale, each chose an organization to donate a portion of their proceeds to, including relief efforts in Gaza, Sudan, and Congo as well as the Black, trans-led collective For the Gworls. When Elsesser announced the sale on Instagram, a torrent of deliriously thrilled commenters flooded her notifications: “Yes! Thank you! Finally a sale in my size range,” “im gonna pass out,” “lemme book this flight.”
@balencianas I have my alarm set for 4 am DO NOT PLAY WITH ME RIGHT NEOWWWWW
♬ AUTOMOTIVO BAYSIDE DJ NK3 - DJ NK3 🥏
“I love clothes, but I don’t love how restricting finding clothes can be,” Elsesser told me the day before the sale. For her, one of the driving forces in her closet cleanout was the desire to ease that feeling of limitation, both in sizing and pricing, for other people. When she was sorting through her garments, Elsesser says she just kept thinking, This might make someone happier. It might bring them that same spark of joy that I had when I first got it.
By 10 a.m., the line to get into the sale wrapped down the block and around the next street corner. It was filled with people in their fashion-forward best: breezy maxi skirts, Miu Miu ballet flats, vintage Prada purses, and ironically sporty sunglasses, which topped heads sporadically throughout the crowd. As has become the cursed tradition for these highly anticipated closet sales, the sun was scorching and the temperature was well into the 80s this morning, something the sale hosts tried to mitigate by handing out popsicles to waiting hopefuls.
Ananda Long and Savannah Jackson were near the front and had been waiting at least an hour and a half, with likely another hour ahead of them before entering. “Midsize closet sale! For the girls! Where else would we be?” they giggled, finishing each other’s statements. Jackson was after some Chanel flats she’d seen posted on Instagram prior to the sale, and Long had her eye on a pair of Junya Watanabe pants. “I didn’t buy anything else this month,” Jackson said. “This was the priority.”
Kaorina Carpenter, the very last person on line when I arrived, had the Call Her Daddy podcast episode featuring Rob from the most recent season of Love Island playing as she settled in for the long haul. She knew she’d be there for a while. “I’m really stoked to find things in my size,” Carpenter said. And anyway, she hadn’t bought clothes in nearly a year. She was ready to make up for lost time.
When I made it inside the sale, there was a distinct order rather than what I had assumed would be chaos. Each seller had their own section, and it was clear whose clothing was placed where, a marker of a wonderfully curated sense of style. Yotka’s racks contained black-colored clothing galore and some scrumptious, rare finds from Chopova Lowena and Thom Browne. Elsesser’s section had a laidback air to it and was marked by playful pieces from Miu Miu and lust-worthy Jean Paul Gaultier garments, like a maroon braided-leather jacket and a mesh long-sleeve I nearly purchased. Karefa-Johnson’s corner was colorful and undeniably fabulous with feathered long coats and platform Gucci loafers for the taking.
I grabbed a pair of denim from Elsesser’s area. It was the calmest I’d felt shopping for jeans, a typically fearsome chore for me. As someone who’s currently midsize, I realized it truly felt rare to be at a closet sale and not experience dread when pulling a piece of clothing. I didn’t have to wonder if they would even be remotely close to my size or worry that someone might try and snatch them from me. Instead, at the risk of sounding cliché, there was some sort of earnest communal energy in the room. There seemed to be an understanding that this was a big deal for everybody involved — to have plentiful racks of designer clothes in inclusive sizing from a small to a 4XL. And unlike the vulture-esque vibes I’ve come to associate with other high-profile closet sales, and have experienced firsthand, it felt like we were all in it together.
“I’ve gone through life feeling like the shopping experience is always going to be something that’s fraught or tense or something that I have to overcome, instead of something that I can just enjoy experientially,” Karefa-Johnson told me. “There really is an effort to make it feel like such a positive experience for as many people as possible.”
Throughout the three hours I spent inside the sale, I watched friends and strangers help one another through the experience. I spotted a pair of friends, Molly Ono and Vivek Suri, debating whether Ono should purchase a pair of shoes from the Asics x Cecilie Bahnsen collaboration or a set of bright blue Ottolinger heels when Elsesser walked up to help them make a pro-and-con list. The Asics might be too big on Ono, but the heels, Elsesser said, pointing to their memory-foam strap, are comfortable, an all-night-approved shoe. Minutes later, I watched three girls, their arms overflowing with garments, engage in the same ritual: pausing before checking out to take a moment to present their spoils to one another, allowing the group to decide which pieces would be coming home with them.
I ran into Escalante just after she had checked out. Her bags were hefty, and she was smiling. She held one open so I could see inside. Among her purchases (a Chopova Lowena dress she’d been eyeing from Karefa-Johnson’s closet and a Thom Browne coat), I saw the pearlescent heart-shaped Simone Rocha bag I’d lusted after since it came out.
Just before I headed out to leave as the proud owner of two new-to-me pairs of vintage Levi’s (something I’d struggled to find for years), I spotted Jackson and Long, whom I had met earlier on line. Their hands were full of clothes. “Did you get what you came for?” I asked them. They started squealing as they showed me their finds: a purple silk skirt, a frilled red tank top, and, in Long’s arms, the pair of Junya Watanabe pants she’d hoped to find.
