NY Shopping Outlets – Agent Provocateur

There are two luxury lingerie brands I’ve checked out many years ago – La Perla and Agent Provocateur. And by checked out, I mean I have gone into the store, gently caressed the pretty frilly things hanging on the fancy hangers and delicately displayed on the the tables, timidly flipped the price tag trying to stop my jaw from dropping wide open because that tiny amount of sewn fabric cost a ridiculous amount, before quickly exiting the store thinking “One day I’m gonna own something from this brand!”

Surprisingly La Perla is not considered one of the top 5 most expensive lingerie brands, but Agent Provocateur is definitely on that list. New York’s Woodbury Commons Premium Outlets have both La Perla and Agent Provocateur outlets. This time I vowed to try on some of these several thousand dollar lingerie. I was curious to see how it compared to other more affordable brands.

Bottom line: While the quality is definitely high and the designs are beautifully provocative with their lace incredibly soft and pleasurable to the touch as it is to the lucky observer, I would not spend that much for lingerie even if it was a couple hundred dollars after being discounted from over $3k .

That being said I walked out with a pink Agent Provocateur bag! I didn’t actually buy lingerie though, I purchased a swimsuit “Texas Cover-up” in black sequin.

Retail cost: $265

Now there is one rule of thumb (out of a few) I go by when deciding whether to purchase something: Irrespective of the brand, I ask myself if would I be willing to pay $X amount for that item. There are some general baseline numbers I try to keep to and I’ll only go above those numbers if it is something I undeniably LOVE. Typically it’s about $20 for tops/shorts and $50 for bottoms/dresses (formal dresses I’ll go up to about $100). I have only bought a swim cover up once in my life so didn’t have a baseline amount to go by, but this looked like a dress so figured I could potentially use that number. I recently bought a high quality swimsuit for about $80 so decided I definitely should not spend more on a cover up than the swimsuit itself.

Aside from the fact that the piece could easily perform double duty as lingerie or a swim cover up, or that this item not only fit my silhouette enticingly but made me feel elegant, beautiful and sexy, exactly what something from this store should make every woman feel in any of their pieces, this was actually pulled from their clearance rack.

Price I paid: $45 (over 80% off!)

This just goes to show, you don’t have to be rich and spend ridiculous amounts of money for a luxury brand you covet. It merely takes a trip to the outlets, patience to comb through clearance racks, good timing with sales and of course luck that they have something perfect for you!