On a recent Friday morning at a barn in Bedford, N.Y., I was on my hands and knees with two dozen other women as our fitness instructor, Carolynn Scull, reminded us we had more than endorphins to look forward to after 45 minutes of pulsing our limbs in the air.
"Guys, c'mon, you have champagne and beautiful, beautiful coats waiting for you!" said Scull, whose popular Pilates-inspired classes usually cost $55 a pop. That day, she was leading a complimentary workout at the Bedford Post Inn as a warm-up to a "shopping experience" -- otherwise known as a trunk show -- co-hosted by Max Mara, the Italian label known for camel-wool coats that can cost upward of $3,000.
After the class, I walked with sweaty would-be shoppers into a room with more than a dozen racks displaying capes, coats, jackets and knit dresses. A calligrapher was there to personalize free gifts with purchases, while two baristas manned an espresso bar set up for the occasion. Upstairs, Pilar DeMann, a makeup artist, was offering free eyebrow shaping services.
"I could walk into 10 stores and not buy anything," said Kerri Fitzpatrick, a 38-year-old shopper from Rye Brook, N.Y, after handing over her credit card to be swiped for a $1,860 furry black cape. "But when I'm at an event like this, I just feel like it's special."
Everything but the trunk
Decades ago, trunk shows involved designers like Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta bringing actual trunks filled with embroidered gowns and luncheon-ready skirt suits to department stores and boutiques in major cities, where customers could place advance orders for the next season's clothes.
Now, as many department stores struggle to keep locations open, and as suburbs have grown wealthier, trunk shows are popping up in new places and taking new forms. No longer just events where designers use trunks full of samples to sell preorders, many combine the instant gratification of off-the-rack shopping with exclusive locations -- private homes, hotels, yachts -- and free perks.
The trunk shows at Laura Vinroot Poole's independent boutique Capitol, which has locations in Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C., often feature live entertainment: Invited guests who shop can also watch Poole interview designers for her podcast. "They can come, have a juice or a tea, learn something, and then be more connected to a designer," she said.
Appearances by designers or brand insiders are still largely a component of modern trunk shows. Rubbing elbows with shoppers at the Bedford Post Inn were Max Mara USA's chief executive, Riccardo Broggi, and his wife.
The label hired City Country Beach, an agency that organizes private luxury experiences, to curate the guest list and set the program. "It's not just a bunch of racks and clothing," Jaimee Marano Lunderborg, City Country Beach co-founder, said of their events, which the agency doesn't call trunk shows.
Marano Lunderborg and Lizzi Bickford Meadow started the business in 2019 to advise brands on how to reach elite shoppers, especially those who had moved outside major cities. City Country Beach has since worked with labels including TWP, Balmain and Bulgari on events in places like Grosse Pointe, Mich. and Nantucket, Mass.
The agency now organizes about 50 events a year, according to its co-founders. Each relies on at least one well-connected local host, who invites their friends and family and is typically rewarded with a shopping credit.
Less scrolling, more shopping
Jennifer Galante Han, a digital strategy consultant, used the trunk-show model for La Volta, the consignment and vintage business she started earlier this year. At one of her first trunk shows, held in the private lounge of an upscale building in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, Galante Han sold five-figures worth of luxury handbags and designer clothing in two hours, she said.
Her events have not had perks as lavish as others. But they have tapped into the social aspect of trunk shows, which has made them more compelling at a time when the internet has disrupted how we browse and socialize.
"Women want to shop together," Galante Han said, recalling the days when she would walk around malls with her friends growing up. Now, she added, "you're scrolling at midnight on your phone, and you're texting people, 'What do you think of this?' "
Zoe Gauntlett, whose business, Untold Luxury Group, uses trunk shows and personal shoppers to connect luxury brands with customers, said that group shopping can often inspire impulse buying.
For smaller or emerging labels, trunk shows are also opportunities to be discovered. Gauntlett specifically looks for brands that shoppers "wouldn't be able to walk into a department store and ordinarily see."
Independent designer Amir Taghi has had a front-row seat to the trunk-show revival. He started hosting them when he introduced his line of colorful, feminine womenswear in 2018. "It was kind of archaic," he said. "Now, all the brands are doing it, no matter what level they are."
Taghi generates most of his revenue through trunk shows: this year, sales at his events have totaled more than $1.5 million. On a busy month, he holds up to eight in six cities, attending most himself. His upscale clothes, priced between $800 and $3,600, are more popular in places like San Antonio and Aspen, Colo., than in New York.
Like others, Taghi typically taps local hosts for his trunk shows and thanks them with shopping credits. "There are some women, no matter how wealthy they are, that want a discount."
This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 31, 2026).