Las Vegas, Designer Discount Shopping Mecca

I spent the weekend in Las Vegas, and as fate would have it my trip and stay at the Encore hotel coincided with Wynn's annual Warehouse Sale. After seeing advertisements scattered around the casino, I went on a lark yesterday thinking I might come out with a bathroom scale (I was imagining an excess of furniture and housewares from the resorts) and ended up scoring a couture dress for an unfathomably great price. I'm going to be high on this deal for months.

The sale was held in a massive ballroom filled with aisle after aisle of castoffs from the malls at both resorts--mostly clothes, much of it high end designer, with a big dose of home goods as well. Sale prices were scaled according to their original retail price, and capped off at $200 for anything that had started out at $1000 or more (items that retailed between $500-$1000 in-store went for $100 at the sale, $250-$500 items went for $20, and continued downward from there). By the time I arrived, late in the day yesterday, the deals had gotten even more insane, since they'd declared an additional 20 percent off everything. I spent a couple hours combing the racks, and emerged with an exquisite Nina Ricci gown in charcoal silk with a black lace overlay. Original price $5700 (!!!) and I paid... are you ready for this??... $160! That's 97% off! Crazy, right? And I also got a Margiela tee for $16 (originally $225) and a flouncy, ruffled black skirt by Fuzzi for $40 (originally $498).

It's almost worth taking a trip to Las Vegas next time they have this sale. I did some googling and found notice of it on Wynn's Twitter feed, so I just signed up to get a heads-up on next year's. Also: when you're out here check out one of my favorite, under-the-radar stores on the planet. It's called Designer Fashion Clearance, located in the back of a totally nondescript outlet mall a few miles off the Strip, and packed with steeply discounted fancy designer clothing (Lanvin, Manolo Blahnik, Rochas, plus contemporary labels like Notify, Helmut Lang, and DVF). They've always got great sales too, and you can save an additional 10 percent by signing up for the mailing list on their site.