Top-of-the range sales of ready-to-wear clothes in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s take place twice a year. The author observed them in eight shops of the capital. The usual offer of goods and the shopping setting are there modified while personalized service is rare. This situation gives rise to new interactions between customers and shop staff. Customers must adapt themselves to a specific selling system : they must slip through the crowd of shoppers to seize the clothes that are their style and try them on. The social world of sales transforms selectively but regularly luxury ready-to-wear shops into more ordinary ones.