9th Annual "7th on Sale" Event Kicks Off This November

The Best of Both Worlds: Buy Top Designer Fashions and Support a Great Cause

Every fashionista loves designer duds, but it is always better to get those fabulous clothes at a discount. However, wouldn't a fabulous fashion find feel even better if you could get it at a discount and donate money to a good cause at the same time? With the "7th on Sale" initiative, that is exactly what you can do.

Each year, fashion's top designers, along with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (C.D.F.A.) and Vogue magazine, donate some of their most coveted clothing to a huge "sample sale" at seriously reduced prices, allowing the public to stock up on designer fashions that they may not have had access to before.

What makes this wonderful is that 100 percent of the proceeds from this "sample sale" will go to funding education and awareness of the AIDS/HIV virus, housing for those living with the AIDS virus, emergency loans for community organizations, and programs for women and children.

The "7th on Sale" event, which was first conceived by C.D.F.A. co-directors Stan Herman and Fern Mallis in 1990, came out of the gate as a huge success, raising over 4 million dollars for AIDS/HIV research that year. The success continued over the next five years, as designers clamored to be a part of the annual "7th on Sale" benefit on both coasts, in New York and San Francisco.

However, in 1995, after a highly successful event grossing over 5 million dollars and the production of a related documentary called "Think Positive", produced by designer Tommy Hilfiger and MTV, "7th on Sale" closed its doors for unknown reasons, and the event would not be held again for ten years.

In 2005, Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the C.D.F.A. brought the "7th on Sale" event out of retirement, this time collaborating with eBay to offer the "sample sale" online to a worldwide audience. This time, "7th on Sale" offered thousands of designer pieces, including one-of-a-kind and celebrity worn pieces. Now, "7th on Sale" is a semi-annual affair, complete with a fabulous, star-studded, formal gala and an online auction on eBay.