LA Sample Sale: Mike & Chris

I learned one important lesson over the past few weeks: when you're tasked with a project, work furiously early. Yes, the risk of burnout is there, but there's a good chance that you'll get the satisfaction of finishing early. I had to grade a stack of papers and I started out too slowly. Consequently, I had to do a mad dash in the end, and it was not pretty (try rushing to meet a deadline when you have a headache).

Anyways, enough of that. Since I was out of the house today (to turn those papers in), I decided to do some window-shopping for the rest of the afternoon. Yes, window-shopping. I said earlier that I'm done buying play clothes, and I'm trying to stick to my guns. I knew where I wanted to go: Mike & Chris, the creaters of a line of absolutely delicious hoodies-slash-vests or blazers or jumpers or bombers or [insert other varieties of outerwear here], is having a sample sale. It kicked off today and will continue Saturday, 10am-7pm. The prices were advertised as 50-70% for the Spring line, and I've never seen the clothes up close and personal, so I just had to look.

I can't believe that I almost went from window-shopping to actual shopping. The prices ranged from $38 on shrug-styled hoodies to I think $175 for leather vests, with a majority of everyday-wearable stuff in the $55-70 range. Everything are made of heavy sweatshirt fleece materials, except they were made into the form of heavier outerwear. I really loved the $55 short-sleeved tie blazers and would have bought one if they had a cream colored one in small, but there were no smalls left. Yes, it would have been a huge splurge, but it would have gotten as much wear as my other expensive acquisition (a $60 Development blazer) simply because it's timeless. I had my eye on another cream-colored short-sleeved bomber hoodie, but for some reason, my "love at first sight" turned into a "meh on a second look." Finally, I loved a military-looking long-sleeved hoodie. It would have been truly timeless. Unfortunately, two things stacked against it. First, it was $68. Although I could be cynical and call it a glorified hoodie (I have no qualms about slamming glorified flipflops), I won't because it doesn't deserve to be so treated--the clothes were truly cute and functional. I would be willing to do this once-in-a-year splurge if it were to fit perfectly, but unfortunately, I was in between sizes. The small was a bit tight at the shoulders, while the medium had too-long sleeves. On top of that, given my expedient attitudes toward laundry and my recent lucklessness, I might shrink it before I have a chance to wear it out. To my knowledge, cotton doesn't have a simple, "boingy" alpha-helix structure (such as wool), so conventional unshrinking methods probably won't work. Even though I spent quite some time there to try on different styles and colors, I decided that the prudent thing to do was to walk away.

If you're interested, here's the lowdown: the sale is located at 834 South Broadway, suite 502 (between 8th and 9th) in the Anjac building. If you plan to go, look to the skies and watch for the 834 street number--there's another Anjac building at 818 Broadway (2 buildings over). I learned the difference in a rather embarrassing manner. If you don't see something in your size on the racks, ask the people running the show--they might have them in the back. Just be warned that the small sizes are either gone or limited in numbers, so go early. If you're really dying to buy a cute hoodie, couldn't find one in your size, but are willing to chance it, you might want to consider buying a larger size and shrinking it. I was told that a medium had shrunken to an extra-small. However, there's a big risk that even if you do end up with a good fit, the seams might end up kinda weird. That's a chance I wasn't willing to take. Finally, watch out for loose buttons, stains, and holes. Loose buttons are not a big deal, but the other two can be trouble.

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