How queuing for stuff became just as important as buying it

It was 5am on a Saturday morning and Chris, 19, a fashion student dressed in a long coat and a face mask, had arrived at a quiet street in Haggerston, East London. This wasn’t an afterparty – it was the location of the Wales Bonner archive sale. With the doors opening at 10am, Chris wanted to get in first: he was after a pair of Jewel sneakers for considerably less than their £595 retail price. He soon wasn’t alone in the pre-dawn dark. By 9am, a sizeable line snaked along the road, filled with other hopefuls dreaming of cut-price tracksuits, Sambas and tailoring from the much-loved London designer.

This wasn’t a one-off, either. Sample sales, archive sales and closet sales (where fashion people, and sometimes celebrities, sell their wares) are increasingly part of how we shop, and also how we socialise. Sure, it’s about getting your hands on those pieces when you get in the door. But something else has become a sign of status, a place to be and a scene in and of itself: The Queue.

Saturday morning at Wales Bonner reflected the brand. The crowd were intellectual – I spotted people reading books by Ben Okri, Toni Morrison and Alasdair Grey – and stylish: think big denim, crumpled macs and art world tote bags. Groups of friends dominated, as exemplified by weekend bargain-hunters Charlie, Will and Ruby, a cheerful trio who all have creative jobs, bundled up in scarves, nursing the coffees necessary for a weekend early alarm call. ​“We go together [to sample sales] a lot, make a bit of a morning of it,” Ruby says.

Online, the discourse around these sales is that they are, in every sense, something of a fashion parade. So much so that even in America, a convenience-first country that has historically been perplexed by the Brits’ contentment to stand patiently in a straight line, the queue-crew is now ​“a thing”. This is particularly true in New York, where Liana Satenstein oversees closet sales of fashion’s great and good. One for Chloë Sevigny last year saw hordes of well-dressed people line up in what Satenstein describes as ​“a human centipede”.

​“It was incredible to see all the outfits. It was real fashion [items], and people came out for [it],” she says. ​“This guy tweeted: ​‘I’m going out to scout the line to see if I can pick up a girl at the Chloë Sevigny sale.’”

That said, there’s perhaps not quite the same effort being made in the London drizzle (not to mention fewer ulterior motives). Asked if the queue is a fashion show, Will laughs: ​“God no, I was wearing this last night!”

Making friends in the queue is a real thing, though. Take frontrunners Jin, Venus and Stephanie, three queue dwellers in serendipitously matching bomber jackets who are passing the time by chatting about everything from their sale wishlist to travel plans and work. It’s a bonding experience. ​“We’re in the trenches, basically,” Venus says. ​“You come here and your friends or your parents don’t really get it: ​‘I’m going to a queue on a Saturday morning,’” Stephanie adds.

The now-legendary Dover Street Market sale was also discussed. Taking place last May at the cavernous former club venue Printworks in South East London, it’s the sample sale that’s most shrouded in lore, for its low prices and its queue. Both Stephanie and Jin are survivors. ​“I was there for 5am and I was still 120^th in line,” Jin says, tucking into an almond croissant. ​“They usually do it every three years but because of Covid, it was seven [since the last one]. I got a pair of jeans and a really nice T‑shirt. That cost me about £50, but originally it would have been £400.

​“I do a lot of window shopping, so seeing something at Dover Street Market sale was pretty thrilling,” according to Stephanie. ​“I got a Maximilian Davis leather skirt for £100 and it should have been a grand.”

It’s nice to share war stories on hauls from sales, and even nicer to bond on a shivery pavement on a wintry morning in Hackney. But is this also a sign of how rampant consumerism has, well, consumed us? ​“So much of culture boil[s] down to… Standing in Line to Buy Stuff That Makes You Feel Part of Something,” Delia Cai recently wrote in her newsletter Deez Links. OK, so she was focusing on the viral videos of a queue to buy merch for Sean Baker’s new film Anora, but the point holds. The sample sale scene may be vibey, you might make a new pal, but it has an end goal: stuff.

Liana Satenstein provides a different perspective. ​“We’re all buying stuff and we’re consuming, so what are you gonna do?” she says. ​“With this, at least there’s a little ​‘something something’ associated with it.” The ​“something something” might be the IRL factor. ​“Sorry if this is crass, but it’s almost like porn versus sex,” she suggests. ​“Online you can order it and get the thing within two to three days – mazel tov – but there isn’t any essence associated with it.”

Say it again: the British like a queue. There’s a whole thread dedicated to it on r/​AskaBrit.

Now, though, they’ve gone from an unremarkable chore you might grumble about to a sign that – via your TikTok FYP, usually – you know where to get the best mango ice cream, how to score that classic Le Creuset kitchenware (a warehouse sale recently caused such a frenzy that the police were called) or that you really, really like Hailey Bieber’s Rhode make-up line. The queue for her early November central London pop-up was, at its height, seven hours long.

​“I feel like in London, queues are part of the culture,” says Wales Bonner queue-dweller Flora, clutching an empty coffee cup. ​“I’m from New Zealand and there are very few queues.”

The current era of fan culture is relevant here, too. Chris, our Wales Bonner (very) early adopter, talks about brands in the same way a K‑pop fan might gush about members of NewJeans. ​“I’m praying that Kiko [Kostadinov] or CDG [Comme des Garçons] would have a sample sale in London,” he says, breathlessly.

Natalie Yaffe, the founder of sample sale venue The Box, is familiar with brand groupies. In her experience, Vivienne Westwood causes the most fashion hysteria.

​“We get huge crowds of people,” she says. ​“For the most recent one, we were all fully booked [with time slot tickets] within four minutes of going live.” Even then, the non-ticketed hopefuls came, with the queue stretching to the four-hour mark. ​“It’s a special brand,” Natalie says. ​“It’s got fans who are teenagers and fans who are 70.”

Natalie worked in fashion before she started The Box and remembers sample sales as a bit of a word-of-mouth event, but only for those in the fashion industry. ​“I’d say in the last 15 years, it’s grown. People love a sample sale.” So much so that things can sometimes get a bit fraught. ​“It’s a finite amount of time to get your hands on something. So that does, obviously, create a buzz that’s not typically found in a normal shop,” she says.

For ​“buzz”, read ​“stress”. Nicole, another Wales Bonner queuer, heard the recent MaxMara event was far from sedate. “[Apparently] women were going crazy. I’ve never been to one [like that] – it was a movie kind of thing. I couldn’t imagine scrapping [over clothes].”

There are also business opportunities to be had in the new sample sale scene. At the Wales Bonner sale, Chris seems like he’s the first in line. But he’s actually behind a group of young men who don’t have the same Socks House Meeting-approved look as the rest of the crowd. They’re dressed in black, with one wearing a tie like a security guard. They decline to be interviewed, but the chatter is that they are professional resellers in the vein of those found in queues for streetwear drops. One queuer, who didn’t want to give their name, said this was not uncommon at sales: ​“I’ve been to one before where they let 10 people in, and there are people with big Ikea bags [so all the stock is gone].”

As well as the reseller, Natalie Yaffe says there’s another fresh figure turning up at her events: the personal shopper. ​“They’ve got someone who’s purchased it before they’ve even paid us,” she says. ​“They’ll show the item to their clients and see who wants to place an order.”

Not everyone is seeing the sale scene as a way to get hands-on favourite pieces or a business opp, though. Take the people at the back of the line for Wales Bonner. Friends Charlie, Elena and Fergus, dressed in puffers and baseball caps, are here because, well, early on a Saturday morning, this queue is kinda the place to be. Still, they’re perplexed by its length.

​“I might not stick around if it starts raining too much,” Fergus says. ​“I think this is my limit.” Charlie, meanwhile, knows what she’d brave any and all weather to queue for: ​“Beyoncé. I queued to get a good spot at the gig. We were right on the line, on the barrier, but this girl was not having it. She bit me.” Ouch. Let’s just hope sample sale queues don’t go that far.