51�Թ�

“I slept in the sample room for a week.”

Around 2017, Wilkinson Schor started sneaking off during her lunch breaks and after work to visit a sample room in Manhattan’s garment district.

“We’re not a brew pub. It’ll be a small sample room,” Arnold said.

But it’s not all high-tech in the sample room, where seamstresses stitch costume prototypes on sewing machines.

My last stop in Agordo was Luxottica’s sample room, a broad, quiet, carpeted space looking out over the river.