^^ IDK...I never really shopped at a boutique till 2007, I think, and the Abbey in my avatar was my first real boutique purchase. I survived prior to that when I was buying
Coach (wasn't always a fan) by shopping ebay, dept store sales, and outlets. They have gone through various and confusing restructuring over the last several years. It's annoyed me in a lot of ways. At one time I could walk into a boutique and find some Legacy pieces, for ex, and then subsequently they changed it to "Legacy store" designations. It got to the point of me seeing the XL Lily at stores like Woodbrige to where I couldn't find any of the pieces I was looking for in the local stores other than Princeton... who finally became a test store and carried a few items. That's really when I started shopping KOP exclusively (back when it was just a flagship, mens, shoe store...before the gallery store conversion)...they had all the items, and it was there I met my fav SA. I followed her later to another small core store before she quit, but I still previewed almost everything at KOP or SH. Then I started going to SH for a while, which was converted to a gallery store around the time of the Bleecker pilots. Anyway, basically Coach dropped the Legacy designation, and I was told at the time (which was around last year's Orlando conference) that all stores will carry a little of everything. I was also told that pilots existed for a long time, at least KOP used to get a lot of mens wallets and things that were apparently pilots or items that nobody else got. I thought after they dropped the Legacy designation it would be better, but it's still structured according to primary, fashion, pinnacle, and flagship, so some stores get select items. So even now I can't walk into Menlo or Woodbridge and find some items I'm looking for, but Freehold has a few...like the Peytons, etc. I realized I'm extremely lucky to live in this area because SH and KOP gallery stores are an hour away from me, and then of course NYC is not bad if I just make the trip! Otherwise, I just don't know how people see stuff in some areas! When I was in TN, which is where I'm from(moved to NJ in '92), there's only one boutique in Nashville. It looks like a fashion store, but still...just one boutique in a huge area! When I was there they had the Parker pilots out. Otherwise, I had seen everything in that store (minus the pilots, of course) plus way more here.
I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about, or if the SAs were misinformed and just thought because they had never seen the item that it wasn't available..but just that they didn't see it because their store is a primary store that didn't get the item. I still have that problem when I walk in some stores with bags I've ordered that are not released at all...or Bleecker St. bags that come from the gallery stores. They all want to know where I got the bags, lol! Also, JAX is frequently a source of misinformation, as a lot of times they will tell you the item is "sold out" when it's not even been released, but it's showing zero inventory because the lot hasn't been uploaded into inventory yet (maybe it hasn't arrived or gone through QC yet). It's sometimes hard to filter out the misinformation.
IDK, though, your point is interesting because I was talking to an Ebay seller from south Jersey one time, and she worked at Macys. Apparently her Macys also got stuff well before release...and items I never saw here in dept stores or at the boutiques either. I'm assuming pilots, but one of the bags mentioned was the HS line, and I didn't think there were pilots for those. They also did not have them here in boutiques, nor where they available to order at that time. So unless she was mistaken on the line (I didn't see the bags), then I guess her store did get an early preview that wasn't a pilot and wasn't available for order.
I miss it. I guess I could go to KOP now, but half the time I am too lazy to treck there when there are stores closer LOL.
