Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
A sample sale is when a fashion designer sells their samples to the general public. Samples are the example garments, fabrics or trims produced during the manufacturing process so a buyer or designer can review color, hand feel and fit before committing to a larger purchase — a buyer may review one sample t-shirt before ordering 10,000 of them. Sample sales let designers, manufacturers and wholesalers clear those accumulated samples out of offices and showrooms and recover some of the cost of making them.
If you want the short answer, “a sample sale is when a fashion designer sells their samples to the general public”. For a more detailed answer, you can read below.
What are samples sales? To answer that question, let’s first figure out the meaning of “samples” and the meaning of “sales”.
Samples are products that are produced for various reasons. They are used during the manufacturing process to show “examples” of clothing, fabric, or trimming. A sample can be a small part or small quantity intended to show what item will look like. A product sample can be used by a buyer to review or try a product before committing to a purchase. For example, a women’s t-shirt buyer may wish to obtain one sample of a t-shirt so that they can review the color, hand feel and fit of the tee before purchasing 10,000 of them. The clothing, footwear, or accessory samples can be used as part of the pre-production process. Learn about fit samples.
Generally, samples are made so that a fashion designer can actually see a garment that they wish to produce for retailers. They need to review samples (small quantities) before proceeding to producing larger quantities of the product. For example, if a designer has a concept drawn up on paper. They will want to review the design as an actual garment to make sure the sewing construction, fabric drape, color selection, and other components of the design maintain a satisfactory appearance. They certainly don’t want to product hundreds or thousands of them and then later find out there is an element of the design that did not translate well from the original illustration concept.
OK, you hopefully know have a general understanding of what a sample is used for in the apparel industry.
Let’s move on to the concept of a sale. This is a rather simple concept that you most likely already full understand. In summary, “sales” are ways for product owners to sell merchandise at a discounted price. Often used by clothing retailers to sell off excess inventory.
Sample sales are when clothing companies sell off the samples that they produced during the year or over a coarse of several years. It is a great way for fashion designers, manufacturers, and wholesalers to clean out their office and show rooms of excess clutter. Businesses that work in the garment industry are continuously developing new product. Some of which becomes successful in the market place and much of which is simply experimental. In summary, designers often have more garments laying around their office than they know what to do with. In an effort to re-coupe some of the expense for making the samples they may offer the product up for sale to consumers. This can be done in the form of a sample sale. Basically, a sample sale is when clothing companies sell their samples.
You may have interested in visiting our sample sale directory section for additional resources regarding this subject.
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Sample sales exist because product development is physical. Before any style reaches a store, it passes through sample stages: a designer draws a concept, a sample is sewn so the design can be judged as a real garment, and buyers review samples to check color, hand feel and fit before placing orders. Each round leaves behind garments that served their purpose the moment they were approved or rejected. Over a year — or several years — a design office accumulates racks of them, including experimental styles that were never produced at all.
For the company, a sample sale converts that clutter back into money and space. The samples were an expense of development; selling them recovers part of that expense, and clearing the showroom matters because new development is continuous. For the shopper, the appeal is the other side of the same facts: sample sale stock is genuine designer or manufacturer product, often at sale prices, but in whatever sizes and styles the sample process happened to produce. There is no full size run to choose from, because the garments were made as examples, not as retail inventory.
That distinction is the key to the term. A sample is defined by its job during the pre-production process — showing what an item will look like — and a sale is simply a way for product owners to sell merchandise, often at a discount, as retailers do with excess inventory. Put together, the sample sale is a small, recurring clearance channel built into how fashion is developed, and the Apparel Search sample sale directory collects resources for finding them.
A sample sale is when clothing companies sell off the samples they produced during the year or over several years, directly to the general public, usually at a discounted price. It clears excess samples from offices and showrooms and helps recover part of the expense of making them.
So the designer can see the design as an actual garment before producing hundreds or thousands of them — checking that sewing construction, fabric drape, color selection and other components translate well from the illustration concept to a real product. Buyers also use samples to review a product before committing to a purchase.
A clearance sale sells off a retailer's excess regular inventory. A sample sale sells the development samples themselves — the pre-production examples made for review — which is why quantities are small and sizes and styles are whatever the sample room accumulated.