36-year-old New York influencer buys $4,500 Kyha Studios gown for $100

Shayla Quinn walked into a NoHo Bond Street bridal sample sale the day after Valentine’s Day and walked out with a Kyha Studios halter-neck gown that retails at roughly $4,500 for $100. The 36-year-old lifestyle influencer posted the haul to TikTok under @shayla.quinn and the clip exploded—reported view counts range from more than 1.5 million with 157,300 likes to nearly 4 million across Instagram and TikTok, depending on which outlet’s snapshot you read.

Quinn says she almost skipped the pop-up. Her friend Jess had been nudging her for two weeks to drop by the Bond Street sale, and Quinn had a lot on her plate: she met her father for the first time in 20 years and had dinner the night before the final day of the pop-up. In a YouTube transcript of her reaction she admits, “Jess has convinced me to try on wedding dresses at her sample sale. I don't want to hear it.” Still, she tried on two gowns and found one that “fit me perfectly. It's simple, timeless, beautiful. Like, I probably wouldn't need any alterations.”

The dress is described in reporting as a triacetate halter gown from Australian label Kyha Studios. Quinn’s memory of price landed on the dramatic gap people love to talk about: “I think it retails for like $4,500 or around there maybe $4,200. It was marked down to $100 bucks,” she said in the transcript, laughing through the disbelief. She bought it despite not being engaged and not actively dating, later admitting in her post that “it had to be done” and that “I wasn’t even looking for a dress—it seems like the dress found me.”

Quinn framed the decision with her manifesting mindset rather than a bridal timeline. She told followers, “I realized I don’t need to wait for a milestone to have something that makes me feel good. I didn’t go looking for the dress, the dress found me. Once I let go of the fear of judgment, buying it just felt right.” That line stitched together the moment: a friend-hosted sample sale on Bond Street, a $4,500 label reduced to $100, and a public decision to buy for herself.

The social reaction was quick and largely positive. Style News Am noted commenters—mostly women—shared stories of buying things spontaneously and later meeting partners, and one man wrote, “I respect this! I’d buy that dress myself!” Quinn told the New York Post she expected ridicule but instead found overwhelming support, saying, “Honestly, I expected people to think I was crazy. But the reaction has been unbelievably supportive.”

This was not a quiet closet score. It was a viral branding moment for Kyha Studios’ halter silhouette, a reminder that sample sales still deliver jaw-dropping markdowns, and a tidy cultural snapshot: a New Yorker buys a four-figure bridal gown for $100 because it fits, it feels good, and she refuses to wait for permission. As Quinn put it, buying the dress “just felt right.”