Fashion Circus comes to town

The boutiques in Rock City tend to cater to a young, loud crowd. But for seven days, an industrial building next to the Pike becomes ''The Designers Circus," a magnet for a more mature, entirely female crowd of fashion-conscious bargain hunters.

A descendant of a similar event held in the Fort Point area in the 1980s, the Circus has been led for the last 10 years by Kathleen O'Neill of Brookline, who says it fills a crucial need of many small clothing designers.

''After we ship to all our stores, we all have ending inventories," says O'Neill, owner of the Blanco Negro clothing line. ''So instead of selling our things to Filene's Basement for a dollar a garment, we're wholesaling them here to all these women. It's creative clothing, and people really appreciate what they find here."

What they find are racks of clothing from 40 designers from New England and across the country, at 30 to 90 percent off boutique prices. Technically, the sale is private: Three times a year (Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and most recently the Oktoberfest edition), O'Neill sends postcards to a mailing list of 5,000 women, and gets 500 to 600 at each event, half of whom show up the first day, creating an atmosphere like that once found at another local bargain-shopping mecca.

''This place is pandemonium, just like the old Filene's Basement used to be," says Melissa Smith of Cambridge, a three-year Circus veteran who regretted being unable to make it to opening day this time. Still, Smith says, there was plenty to see even at the midpoint of the sale.

''You find things here that you would rarely find elsewhere, and certainly not at the prices that Kathleen sells them for," says Smith, pointing out a number of handmade items. ''It never gets stale. There's a kind of seasonality, but there's also an introduction every single time of a different product, or a different designer."

Like many, Smith first heard about the Circus through a friend three years ago, but there are also some spontaneous arrivals, including an Episcopalian priest whose grocery-shopping trip took on a new dimension when she spotted the only public notice of the event: a small sign on the sidewalk.

''I saw 'Women's Clothing, Discount,' and pulled right over quickly," says Karen Coleman of Cambridge, who found both a suit and a jacket that she thought would go well with her standard black-shirt-and-collar uniform.

''I like to spruce things up with color and things that don't look boring and dull," says Coleman. ''I call it 'wearable art,' stuff that you don't see at a mainstream store. And the prices are really good -- I live right around the corner from a boutique store, so I know how much they are."

Deb Jackson of Lexington, another Circus devotee, says she especially enjoys the sale's ''open dressing room," in which many women spot items that they missed out on the racks.

''It's a lot of fun watching people try things on, and there's a whole lot of 'If you don't like that, can I try it on?' " she says. ''There's a lot of sharing of ideas -- it's like a community, actually; people helping each other."

Nearby, Renata Harris looked over a warm-looking wrap that she thought would go well for a new role in her life.

''I've just become a grandmother, and it looks sort of grandmotherly, don't you think? It'll comfort the little munchkin," says Harris, an artist's agent who lives in Cambridge.

''And I found a couple of other things that'll go out in the evening, when I'm not playing grandmother."

The next Designers Circus is in February. For exact dates, e-mail designerscircus@verizon.net. Will Kilburn can be reached at wkilburn@globe.com.