Postcards from a Sale

The roscón is gone, the Premio Nadal has been given and today you’re finally starting your diet. That can only mean one thing – today is January 7th. Finally the holidays are over (except for school children who traditionally have this last day off to play with the toys the kings brought yesterday) and today the sales start. Some stores started marking down surreptitiously a few weeks ago (Biscuit and Kalma in the Bulevard Rosa to name a couple,) and many offer early discounts to the customers on their mailing list, but now the signs are up and it’s official.

From the looks of things, it’s a pretty quiet start – no pushing or shoving at opening time. The 30%-50%-Final markdown scale that stores used to follow hasn’t held for the past few years, especially since so many use “Up to 50% off” signs now, but we’ll soon know how well the sales are going, or how quickly stores are getting rid of their overstock, when we see how quickly they go to second markdowns.
For now a few notes:
Nicest sale window goes to L’Occitane, who even at sale time wants to make things pretty.

Bally seems to have closed up shop on Passeig de Gràcia for the New Year.

The biggest crowds were to be found at Camper, who had no sale signage at all.

How weird is it to see Hello Kitty in the window of Furest? Is nothing sacred?