Sezane Black Friday: It doesn’t exist. Not really.

[Update, 11/29: We have an answer to the question of if at the last minute this would finally be the year that Sézane gave in and did some sort of major Black Friday promotion — and no! The answer is here, and it is no. It did, however, update the homepage (lol). I did get an email from Sézane this morning, but it had nothing to do with Black Friday — rather, it teed up the December 1 debut of the collab with Paris-based (but Spain-born) designer Maria de la Orden (indeed, it’s the same image from the new homepage).

If you like the look of those shoulder-bow blouses there are more of them on her own site (it’s the Belinda, $207) — I do like her bags, which just debuted last week and are like more vintage-y variations on the Milo (but very €€€€€).

Just because there’s no Black Friday sale, there are still sale pieces on the site, you just need to go to the Archives, and there’s plenty of great stuff there if you don’t mind shopping for summer — the pickings are a little all over the place (there’s exactly zero pieces of knitwear size medium):

• • The Aloise dress, which I own and love even though it’s a hassle to get into and keep tight against your chest (read: back ties) (I still love it), was $245, now $180
  • The Ophelia dress in black: Very Elphaba coded!! Was $215, now $155
  • Calanques swimsuit in indigo: I worry about the neckline staying up but I love it. Was $130, now $105 — honestly, there’s a ton of swimwear
  • If you’re going on a warm-weather vacation this winter, the Carla pouch would be a lovely accompaniment. Was $170, now $150
  • New Year’s Eve dress!!! The Marie: was $230, now $175[Update, 11/26: There’s a new offer for your choice of velvet bag with $50, but it’s intermittently appearing on the homepage. Also: Sign up here for a Sézane-only newsletter, sent daily-ish between now and the start of the French sales in January.

[Update, 11/20!! Sézane emailed subscribers with the following offer for a “limited-edition tote bag” with pre-Thanksgiving purchase — not totally dissimilar from previous years’ Thanksgiving-themed promotions, like the 2021 neck scarf. Interestingly, I — a repeat online shopper and newsletter subscriber — did not receive this email, so the deployment seems a little scattershot. I saw it on the homepage this morning, but then, when I went back to screenshot it a couple hours later, noticed that it had been taken down, so not sure what’s happening there. Maybe it was a one-day-only offer?]

[Returning to the regular post:]

You won’t be surprised to hear that French brands do not observe Black Friday (i.e. the shopping-centric day after the extremely American holiday of Thanksgiving) like U.S. brands. This is not to say that the term “Black Friday” hasn’t made its way to Paris — it has. But the French have their own sale periods, and they do not align precisely with ours: Look for big sales in January and June. The next one will start on January 8 and run through February 4 — it’s all super official.

But surely Sézane — a brand with coming up to a half-dozen shops in the U.S. — must participate in Black Friday in some way? Mais non. I imagine that it’s part of their extremely valuable French identity to, in fact, not celebrate it, the same way that their New York City boutique used to be closed on Monday, à la française.

Of course, this could change, as the brand expands its footprint in the U.S. In 2022, it promised a “Black Friday surprise” that didn’t amount to anything. So time will tell — but as of today, what’s safe to say is that the brand hasn’t recognized Black Friday in the past. We’ll see if that changes in a few weeks.

In the meantime, though, there are plenty of ways to get the brand at a discount, without waiting for a currently mythical Sezane Black Friday sale. Your options include:

• • • The Archives, which used to be their big, twice-yearly sale and now functions as more of a permanent sale section.  Obviously the selection is best when the Archives first open for business, seasonally speaking. Subscribe to their newsletter for updates, because the best stuff goes really fast.
    • Their outlet shop in Paris, on rue d’Uzès, around the corner from the main store on rue Saint-Fiacre. See this trip report for details on the pricing structure (for example, all coats are €100), selection, and photos.
    • Resellers like Poshmark, where prices are set by resellers but in my estimation hover around 30% of retail

Here’s hoping for a more festive take in years to come. If it happens, I’ll update this post.

For all our Sézane coverage, see here.