**Paris January 2011 SALEEE!**

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#121
xiangxiang0731 said:
Went there yesterday around 11.30am. Waited about 45mins before being let in. I have to say by that point, not much had left. No jewellery or SLG apart from 1 type of leather cuff in big sizes and some agenda covers. I grabbed second last one of blue Jean card holder. No cashmere shawl left. Even carre 90 were running very low. But I managed to get 2 lovely plissé and 140 & 90 mouseline. 2 of 70 vintage silk.

I moved quickly to FSH around mid-afternoon and scored a beautiful Birkin there. Will do a reveal when it's delivered back to London this Sat.
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oh great Xiangxiang !!! I'm happy to hear that you found a birkin at FSH ...
please tell us more asap !
hugs
 
#122
**Chanel**, thenurse, argone, thank you! Still haven't got around to take pictures of the sale loot yet. And the Birkin hasn't even been delivered yet! :thinkin:

crazyforhermes, reading your experience, I think it sounds horrible for normal customers and it's really disorganised of Hermes. How could they let those re-sellers running freely and don't have any quota system? They definitely should introduce a limit such as max of 2 items for design or something like that. This situation is quite frankly un-acceptable.
 
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#124
XiangXiang: congrats on finding your Birkin

Nadiap: the shawls were Euro 456, CFH was correct with the other prices.

lanit: thanks :hugs:

Argone: I was in the queue right behind Brieuc and read his blog, too. I think we were all disappointed by the limited selection.

Congrats to all those who found what they wanted, it is well deserved!!

I don't think it is worthwhile to come for the sale alone but if you visit Paris anyway or can stretch to explore the city for a few days or as in my case visit family then it does not matter so much of the haul is small. If you only travel for the sale and have to pay for accommodation, then you have to buy an awful lot more to make it worthwhile.
 
#125
Bienchen thanks!

I went via Euro star in the morning and came back the same day in the evening. I booked tickets long time ago so it's fairly cheap. I agree if one have to pay for accommodation etc, it's hard to make it worthwhile.
 
#126
Bienchen - glad you were OK! Why DO people have to push and shove - it was the same experience at the Grand Palais when I went to see Monet and Bvlgari exhibitions. So rude! Resellers should be banned!
 
#127
My first experience at the Paris sale scared the crap out of me. One middle aged man (I wouldn't call him a gentleman) and his wife kept trying to jump the queue. And then there were a few Asians (I'm not being racist as I'm an Asian too) who queued on behalf of their friends. They arrived an hour later in 4s or 5s, all lugging huge trolley suitcases to the anger of the French who had been queuing since the wee hours of the morning.

The very same middle aged man later came to physical blows with a French woman with me standing smack in the middle. Very frightening. I had to tell them to please calm down. I've also seen a few others who were screaming at the top of their lungs to get the SAs' attention. My goodness.
 
#128
birkingal said:
My first experience at the Paris sale scared the crap out of me. One middle aged man (I wouldn't call him a gentleman) and his wife kept trying to jump the queue. And then there were a few Asians (I'm not being racist as I'm an Asian too) who queued on behalf of their friends. They arrived an hour later in 4s or 5s, all lugging huge trolley suitcases to the anger of the French who had been queuing since the wee hours of the morning.

The very same middle aged man later came to physical blows with a French woman with me standing smack in the middle. Very frightening. I had to tell them to please calm down. I've also seen a few others who were screaming at the top of their lungs to get the SAs' attention. My goodness.
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Scary indeed! I am relieved I didn't go on the first day because I wouldn't be able to handle the scene and would have been really distressed... It's just not worth it in any counts.
 
#129
I went on the first day at around 10am and waited for 6 hours! People were very rude and there was a lot of aggression, pushing. Once inside, there were queuing up for everything.

But there was scarves and shawls. I bought a scarf for 248 euros, and two shawls were 536 euros. There were no belts or bags except for a very small quantity of canvas bags. But I cannot remember the names.

One SA told me that I must buy what I want because they will not adding stocks the next day like last year. I thought it was a joke but my friend who went the next day said there was no shawls left. So i am happy I bought somethings.
 
#131
I will never go for a sale again, it was very frightening for me. I didn't buy much because there was a lot of shoving and impatience. The line for scarves are so long I waited one hour! There were a few wallets and other small leather items. No jewelry but there was one type of leather bracelet.
 
#132
I will also never buy online again from resellers as it is just giving them fuil for their bad behavior. I wonder how the summer sale will be.

I am happy that you are safe and sound at home.
 
#134
Bienchen said:
Thank you Chanel, I had a great time but I did not buy a lot at the sale.

I arrived at 5:30 in the morning (having taken the night bus) and made friends with a lovely Parisian lady. There were about 40 or 50 people ahead of us. All very civilised so for. Then, just before 6am the outer doors were opened and the people at the back of the queue surged forward to get to the door before everyone else. I could not be bothered to run, just walked briskly. One man fell over turning a corner, people were just crazed.

Everyone headed for the elevator upstairs which was running. There is another door upstairs just where the elevator ends and this is where we needed to queue until about 7am but the elevator was running and all these people were coming upstairs crushing the people already on the first floor. Some people got so scared, they took the elevator to the second floor but then realised that this way they missed their place in the queue and had to get all the way back to the end.

I was at the back of the queue on the elevator and heard the screams, saw people turning round and trying to run down the escalator and joined them. I did not know the portals on the first floor were still closed, I thought there was some incident because there was genuine panic.

Finally the elevator came to a standstill and I could walk up and found myself probably back where I would have been if the people from the end of the queue had not all over taken us.

I took not much pleasure from this as the last which temporarily had been first were now last again and were cursing in foreign tongues......

Security finally appeared around 7am to let us into the second entrance, making us walk in single file, still much shoving and pushing. Queue jumping continued and one lady proudly exclaimed she had been doing the sales since the late 70's appeared all of a sudden next to me and a few minutes later she was right at the front.

When I handed my coat in, I was given ticket # 39, so I reckon I was roughly where I should have been.

At 9am we were finally let in in groups of about a 20 at a time, I went in with the second batch. The cashmeres where I was headed first had already been cleared out a fair bit. I picked one but it was not my best pick, so I went back a few times later and finally got Brazil in cream background with red and blue.

There was a good selection of 90 silks with a queueing system. I had to wait about 15 minutes and picked 3 scarves plus a 70 for a fellow TPF'er.

I went to RTW as the SA's there were not busy to try on my scarves and to get advice re colourways. I decided to keep the 140 and only the 90 Onde de Chic, perfect c/w for me.

Belts were already gone by then (10am!) and there was still a selection of SLG but I was not desparate for anything and did not face more queues.

The worst behaviour IMO was demonstrated by the resellers; not only were they pushing and shoving, they also grabbed absolutely everything in sight, ie 10 cashmeres often 3 or 4 of the same design and c/w, dozens of scarves, some of them had client wish lists that spanned six pages, closely typed!!!

Would I do it again? Possibly, but it was scary and badly organised, so I have to balance that against any possible savings.
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Thank you for your report Bienchen, glad to hear that you had a great time and that your scored some nice goodies. Your GM sounds beautiful, well done!
Also, glad to hear that you're back home safe now.

It sounds like this battefield was bigger than last time though.
I have nothing against resellers but at least they could behave and not grab everything in sight.
I agree with someone else that they should limit purchases so that they can't buy everything but I believe this was done last time.
When I was at the sale last summer, I could only buy one pair of pompons and my friend could luckily buy another pair for me.
Also, I could only buy one clic clac.

Thank you for sharing all the stories everyone and congratulations on all your purchases :yahoo:!
I can't help it but when I look at my silver Hermès ring I got last year from Paris sale, it makes me smile. I love it and it feels like a true trophy from the battefield :p.
Looking forward to hear more stories, I hope Perigord had a great time too.
 
#135
Just want to pipe in regarding resellers. Not all resellers behave that way nor do they sell only S mark items.

There are reputable resellers who sell vintage Hermes items bought from actual store by people like us. I think it is best to think rationally before making such generalization.

Note: I am not affiliated with any resellers.
 
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