late night minutes

Aritzia Warehouse Sale 2018 (haul + experience)

Over labour day weekend I took a quick trip to Vancouver and luckily the annual Aritzia warehouse sale happened to fall on that same weekend (I swear this was not planned hehehee) I heard so much about this sale and did my research, showing up at 5:30am on the Saturday of that weekend. Doors opened at 7am but surprisingly at 5:30, there was only about 20 people in line. Luckily it wasn't super cold, and I had on leggings, nikes, and a hoodie which was enough. The line up started outside of the convention centre, but they moved the line in at around 6:30am, with doors opening promptly at 7am. By the time 6:30 hit, there was about 100-150 people in line

The warehouse is actually MASSIVE! There's racks on racks of unsorted clothes and plenty of space so it was easy to navigate. I asked one of the workers there if the clothes were sorted in any particular way and she said 'not anymore' - I was looking for jackets but I did not come across more than 2 (literally just two buried within a rack of sweaters, tank tops, skirts, etc).

Sizing is all over the place and there's repeats of items on every rack so you'll come across the same item in several different places. One negative thing I have to say is that almost all the clothes I found, had minor snags or pilling which was unfortunate. It was already hard enough to find something I really liked, in my size, in the colour I wanted, and at a good price (some Wilfred items were still $80 after discount?!? No thanks)

Bless the workers that were consistently cleaning and hanging up fallen clothes but it didnt matter how many there were, the hundreds of girls pouring into the warehouse by 10am was enough to create piles of clothes everywhere, like seriously EVERYWHERE. It was unavoidable and I ended up stepping on so many clothing piles on the floor :(

There were also several bins of accessories (belts, some shoes but not much, hats, scarves) but they were so messy that I didn't bother looking through. It also all looked like old stock that wasn't in good condition (think Forever 21 accessory bins)

A few important things to also note:

- changerooms are communal so dress in layers and be prepared to strip

- don't bring a huge bag so you can save time by avoiding bag check
- they accept all major credit cards
- I was pretty dehydrated in the 3 hours and they don't have water so I recommend bringing a small water bottle for emergency lol

All in all, I spent 4 hours total (1 hour waiting and 3 hours shopping) and came out with 4 items that I'm very happy with!