Secret Sale

Sneak into deals on designer duds of up to 90 percent off

urking in an old brick industrial building in the shadow of the Massachusetts Turnpike is an under-the-radar, guerilla designer fashion store with a top-flight selection for women. Some 70 small local and national designers sell their samples and end-of-season inventories directly to buyers at Designer’s Circus instead of wholesaling them for pennies on the dollar to the discount chains. The designers make more money, and the customers get from 30 to 90 percent off boutique prices. Unlike conventional clothing stores, the Circus isn’t open all year long. It’s more of a series of periodic fashion events, a few a year, that go on for weeks at a time and are technically private. The secret? You can simply go to the website for the dates and times (there are always Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day sales), or to sign up to be on the mailing list. With clothes for all seasons, in all colors and for all sizes, these sales attract women of all ages. Geiger

Shhhh! Designers include KLD, White
Rice, City Lights, NoBlu, Exotic, and
Veranda Wear, among many others.

Shhhh! The Circus was started by Kathleen
O’Neill, a Brookline fashion designer, to sell the leftover inventory from her own line, Blanco Negro.

Shhhh! The Circus has been called “the love
child of Haute Couture and Filene’s Basement.”
It also hosts occasional sales in Portland, Maine.

Shhh who knew

America's first discount store was Filene's Automatic Bargain Basement (later shortened to Filene's Basement), opened in 1909 by Edward A. Filene beneath his father's Filene's store in Boston to sell off overstock and out-of-season merchandise.