I went to the Dover Street Market Sample Sale over the May bank holiday weekend and was absolutely blown away by the size of the queue! I thought I would be getting there early too, but by the time I got to the venue, I was greeted by this:

After waiting for nearly an hour and having moved less than 10 meters, I decided to leave as I could see that once you got past the gate, there was another zig zaggy queue inside. Shame, I completely under-estimated the size of the crowd!

Half an hour I can deal with, maybe even an hour. But I think it would've taken at least a few hours that day. I think the longest I ever waited to get inside a sample sale was 2.5 hours. It was for a Liberty sale, and to be honest the queue didn't look that long. However I guess the longer you wait, the more invested you start to feel, and if you end up walking away then you can't help but feel like you just wasted an hour or two of your life! The Liberty sale ended up being pretty good and I got a beautiful cashmere printed scarf at nearly 80% off!

So my friend and I ended up jumping on a bus and headed over to Broadway Market. It was my first time there and thought it was such a lovely market! It felt a lot less touristy than Portobello Road and I managed to pick up a delightful apple tart and fresh pesto and harissa. I'll definitely be heading back!