Two dozen women spent 45 minutes on a barn floor in Bedford, N.Y. Their instructor's Pilates-inspired classes usually cost $55. This one was free. The reward waited in the next room. Racks of Max Mara coats, the camel-wool kind that can run upward of $3,000. The Journal's Chantal Fernandez was on the floor with them, and she calls the event what it is. A trunk show.
Inside, more than a dozen racks held capes, coats and knit dresses. Buy something and a calligrapher hand-lettered a free gift for you. Two baristas pulled espresso. Upstairs, a makeup artist did eyebrows for free. Kerri Fitzpatrick, 38, of Rye Brook, N.Y., handed over her card for a $1,860 furry black cape. "I could walk into 10 stores and not buy anything," she told the Journal. An event like this, she said, just feels special.
Everything but the trunk
Trunk shows used to mean a real trunk. Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta hauled samples to department stores so customers could order next season's clothes early. Department stores are struggling now, and the suburbs have more money. So the shows moved to private homes, hotels and yachts. You buy off the rack, on the spot. Max Mara hired an agency, City Country Beach, to pick the guests and plan the day. The agency started in 2019 and now runs about 50 events a year. Each one leans on a well-connected local host who invites her friends. The host is usually thanked with a shopping credit.
Designer Amir Taghi started doing trunk shows in 2018, when he says the idea felt old-fashioned. This year his event sales have passed $1.5 million. In a busy month he holds up to eight in six cities. His pieces run $800 to $3,600 and sell better in San Antonio and Aspen, Colo., than in New York. He thanks his hosts with credits too. Zoe Gauntlett, who runs a luxury-shopping business, told the Journal that group shopping can often inspire impulse buying. She wasn't complaining. That's the product.
Our read
This is a Cash Flow story (M5) dressed as a style story. Look at the parts. The free class makes you feel you've earned a treat. The host is a friend who gets paid a little when you buy. The room is full of people you know, all buying. The coffee is good. None of it is a trick, exactly. It's a store with the lights arranged differently, and the article's own source says it works on impulse. Ms. Fitzpatrick said it plainly. Ten stores, nothing. One party, $1,860.
If you've got an invitation like this on the fridge, the check is simple. Open your monthly budget and find the fun-money line, the one that covers clothes and treats. Decide the number before you walk in, and say it out loud to the friend you bring. The tip sheet in the paper says bring a plus one. We agree, as long as your plus one knows your number. You pick the umbrella at home, in daylight. Not in the store when it's already pouring. A quick look at that line with us before the next invitation beats a surprise on the card statement after it.