Banana Republic Sale Picks
Sales are worthless if you're not gonna get much use of what you buy, and I still need to remind myself of that when I go to outlet stores. Shopping isn't a sport, despite what the endorphins tell us (me).
I love sales at the start of the season: I'll wear the pieces immediately, and stores have more stock across all the sizes and colors.
The Banana Republic Friends and Family sale
- 40% off full priced purchase
- September 16 – 26
Their cashmere isn't part of the sale and wasn't discounted last year until the end of the season, when they no longer had a full run of sizes/colors. Some of the items I'm recommending will have already been marked down before the sale, so it's excluded from the 40% off.
Blazers
These are all excellent. I was really impressed by the satin in person; I'm very skeptical of non-silk satins. This one is rich and not too glossy. It drapes beautifully.
I've got a relaxed Siena blazer in navy that I just love. I appreciate that BR generally uses viscose for lining, rather than polyester. That's a choice that we don't see often enough at double their prices.
Other than the cropped herringbone wool flannel blazer, these blazers are too refined for jeans. They've got the drape and sheen of suiting fabrics, so they go better with finer fabrics or even leggings.
Pants
I love a blazer with a ponte pant, it’s dressier and arguably more comfortable than denim. The blazer doesn't need to match the pants, and Banana's palette is so easy to mix: chocolate brown, charcoal gray, deep navy, and black. Navy and black are so gorgeous together.
As for tailored trousers, their wool pants have a beautiful drape, and the fabric is responsible wool from a 19th century Italian mill.
Jeans
I thought I'd just say all jeans are consistently amazing because I've been impressed by the distressing I've seen in racks and racks of jeans across my visits to Banana. So I was very surprised to see fake-looking whiskering on the medium and light washes in the Relaxed Flare Jean. This style looks good in black, though.
Coats
The Pura wool/cashmere coat looks a lot like the Max Mara Manuela: double breasted wrap coat with a soft shoulder and an exaggerated 70s collar. I compared the two in this video here; I love both. Banana sourced the fabric from Italy's Balli Mill.
Pura Oversize Wool-Cashmere Wrap Coat
$500 marked down to $300; 90% virgin wool, 10% cashmere. Fully lined for added warmth. Fabric sourced from Italy's Balli Mill
The other Banana coat I'm recommending is the Relaxed Wool Topcoat in 100% wool. It comes in a rich navy, which is shaping up to be one of the big colors for fall. If you, like me, are always on the hunt for navy pieces, this is your year. It's not always an easy search, even though navy isn't exactly a niche color.
Relaxed Wool Topcoat
$210 marked down from $350. 100% midweight wool, which adapts for a wide range of seasons. Fully lined in viscose.
The rest of the coats I saw were either 55% wool + 45% recycled polyester OR 50% wool + 40% polyester + 10% other. I like to cap this type of coat fabric at about 30% synthetics just to be safe. Synthetics are okay for technically innovative uses like pleats, athletic pieces, and adventurous textures. When they're used to mimic wool, silk, linen, or cotton, the results tend to be underwhelming. And I don't need to tell you of the environmental implications.
Shirts
The boxy crop shirt looks like Victoria Beckham's style, and I love both the shirt and her style. I don't know why I waited to purchase it, and now I'm glad I waited.
I don't like hyperbole, but their Perfect Silk Shirts really are great. I reviewed both the silk shirt and the cropped one in this video. The silk shirt comes in the most sought-after colors this fall: a bluish olive green they're calling green nori, a blue, and this cherry jam that I will be getting.
Sweaters
The cashmere is walled off from this sale, but they've got beautiful styles in merino and cotton-silk. The merino cardigan's sale price is lower than what I paid for my Everlane merino cardigan, and the BR cardigan has nicer fashioning along the seams. It looks more sophisticated.
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