Style Forum member's H experience...
- Thread starter potiron
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But you have to admit that there is a touch of the surreally comedic to the exchange which only adds to the intrigue and caché that is Hermès :
"I'm afraid I can't discuss that at this time. We'd have to check with Paris at some point"
"Okay . . . how do we get to the step where you check with Paris?"
"I'm not able to discuss that at this time."
"Okay, is there someone else we can talk to about custom orders?"
"That would be me. I'm the corporate representative in the store. If someone wants to do a custom order, all the questions come to me."
"So, can you help us? I would like to do this order today."
"It all depends."
The next line in my fantasy version of this story would have been, "If I tell you, then I'm afraid I'd have to kill you."
It's like Franz Kafka's story, 'Before the Law ':
But you have to admit that there is a touch of the surreally comedic to the exchange which only adds to the intrigue and caché that is Hermès :
"I'm afraid I can't discuss that at this time. We'd have to check with Paris at some point"
"Okay . . . how do we get to the step where you check with Paris?"
"I'm not able to discuss that at this time."
"Okay, is there someone else we can talk to about custom orders?"
"That would be me. I'm the corporate representative in the store. If someone wants to do a custom order, all the questions come to me."
"So, can you help us? I would like to do this order today."
"It all depends."
The next line in my fantasy version of this story would have been, "If I tell you, then I'm afraid I'd have to kill you."
totally
exactly, i use this phrase pretty often irl and in jest...
There is the John Lobb in Paris owned by Hermès, and there is the John Lobb Bootmaker in England that has a two Royal Warrants. The English John Lobb does not offer ready-made footwear; those are available at the Hermès-owned John Lobb SA.
Read about the difference here: http://www.johnlobbltd.co.uk/main/faq.htm#q8
omg I missed the joke on "Did you tell the salespeople who you are?"!
they are making fun of the OP at that thread! it seems like he's a "star" over there.
:lolots::lolots:
that's it, I'm making an account. LOL
Go for it, allan, you have the wit and snark (not to mention the taste and style) to fit right in!
The next line in my fantasy version of this story would have been, "If I tell you, then I'm afraid I'd have to kill you."
Maverick to Charlie:" I can tell you but then I have to kill you."It's like Franz Kafka's story, 'Before the Law ':
TOP GUN
While your posts are excellent Cakey and I totally understand your point, I have to agree with India here. Hermes is a retail store and it is the job of the sa's to be educated in the products that are supposed to be selling day in and day out. From personal experience I cannot say how many times it irks me when I phone up a SA inquiring about one of their products and they have no idea what I am talking about and ask me to supply them with a product code or a line number as a simple description even taken from their website or scarf booklet is not enough to enlighten them. This is pure laziness on their part as what they are really trying to say is "I can't be bothered to look for the product code for you, please give it to me so that I can just stand here and tap it into the computer even when the product could be sitting right in front of them".
The SA that Foo dealt with was in charge of accepting SO's to Paris, which is what she stated in her conversation with him. I would expect a SA of that calibre to therefore have this knowledge first hand and be able to give her customer a simple yes/no answer on whether a particular wallet was available in a certain skin/colour. As the everyday customer, we have managed to educate ourselves on hundreds of references with regards to H from colour to pricing to skins so why is it so hard for the SA's who are paid to learn this, to do their job properly. Exclusive or no exclusive is no excuse for ignorance when you are dealing with products costing hundreds to thousands of dollars.
The SA that Foo dealt with was in charge of accepting SO's to Paris, which is what she stated in her conversation with him. I would expect a SA of that calibre to therefore have this knowledge first hand and be able to give her customer a simple yes/no answer on whether a particular wallet was available in a certain skin/colour. As the everyday customer, we have managed to educate ourselves on hundreds of references with regards to H from colour to pricing to skins so why is it so hard for the SA's who are paid to learn this, to do their job properly. Exclusive or no exclusive is no excuse for ignorance when you are dealing with products costing hundreds to thousands of dollars.
As an aficionado of Hermès dark greens, I don't think he's going to find what he's looking for (evergrain comes only in what I consider boring colors, with the possible exception of indigo). If he's willing to settle for the one, um, butt wallet in vert bengale that a US store ordered, I am sure the Madison store can get the Evelyne wallet in, I believe, chevre mysore transferred from the store in Hawaii at which it currently resides. If there were two interior money compartments, I'd have gotten it myself, although vert bengale is a tiny bit brighter a green than I'd like. The swatch was very pretty, though.
BV has some wallets in bottle green that he might like, too.
BV has some wallets in bottle green that he might like, too.
This thread is just too good, I could not resist! If you would've told me yesterday that I'd be making an account on a forum where women talk about purses, I would've slapped you!
Where to start where to start...my mouth is salivating...
I guess this could have been trolled some more for the lulz, but at some point you have to stop the madness.
1. Clearly, none of you understand forum humor over there. I cannot believe you actually thought the person posting "did you tell them who you were" posted that with a straight face. But since you thought it was serious, I will add some fuel to the fire by playing devils advocate. There was a good chance Old foo actually was an important person, as you see, in the real world, men acquire the means to purchase expensive things by gaining power and money through business dealings, as opposed to marrying someone with it. So yes, they should have cared who he was or could have been. I guess they are more-so concerned with not offending some celebrity or wife-of-someone-important.
2. I love how some of you talk about some sort of secret Hermes handshakes (No I did not take that literally). There is virtually nothing exclusive about any of the luxury brands you drool over, they exist to fleece people trying to purchase status. Walking into Dunkin Donuts and walking into Hermes is fundamentally the same thing. They have an unlimited supply of goods, and they should offer the base service possible.
3. The craftsmanship and limited availability some of you talk about is a figment of your imagination. I've been in the factories of every major luxury brand (House? LOL), and it's the same thing now: Immigrants from northen africa and eastern europe working for near minimum wage. Only the tiny custom order workshops actually employ French people, not that they're any better at what they do than anyone else. As far as availability, 10,000 skins of wet blue cow (waits for, "my bag isn't blue!") are only a phonecall away for me or anyone else who know the brokers number, and getting them processed is a piece of cake with every tannery in France working way below capacity because their tanning methods can and are replicated in the "third world", ie Spain (ha) or India and come out costing 60% less.
If I had to put a number to it, I would sau 0.001% of Hermes items are hand sewn, so there is no shortage of labor that can operate a sewing machine, and hand sewing is so easy I'm sure any of your mothers could do it, all you need is thread/bristle and an awl.
4. John Lobb had two branches along with a RTW line. Hermes bought the Paris branch and the RTW line. Lobb still gets royalties. Paris/Hermes owned DOES make bespoke shoes, the Lobb London is not the only one.
5. I love what are listed as "luxury brands". LV makes plastic coated canvas bags sewn by immigrants, what is luxurious about that? I guess you wanted to show how much you know about "luxury brands" by mentioning "breitling". For those who know even the bare minimum about watches and the watch industry, breitling is regarded as one of the worst "swiss" brands, using chinese parts in their ETA movements. Real "luxury" watch brands do the entire engineering of the movement themselves. I did not expect women to know much about watches however, as the only watches sold to them for the most part (99%) are cheap quartz garbage. All the Hermes, LV, etc watches fit the bill here.
6. How could brands made by uneducated minimum wage labor be luxurious? How did this perception start? Some smart businessMEN, like the one who founded this website, had no interest in these things but knew by dumping millions on marketing they could convince the "Jones'" that they need their goods to display their new "status". They were right.
7. The car analogy is inept. There is an enormous amount of original engineering innovation in makers like bmw, benz, etc that justifies their prices somewhat. They spend billions on r&d and need to recoup that amount. "Luxury brands" have nothing to r&d, except marketing, and that's what they spend money on. A better analogy would be spending $100,000 on a Daewoo because they created faux exclusivity by limiting output. Ie, you're a mental midget if you buy into that. There is no fundamental difference between a $50 dollar and $5000 purse.
8. So what is luxury? Once upon a time, my family had 2 seamstresses and a shoemaker as part of their staff. This is not the case anymore, but the places where I purchase my shoes, suits, shirts, etc make my things only by "special order" (what is this, a department store?), and do not require any kind of idiotic "secret handshake". They treat people coming in for their first suit or their 50th with the same level of attention and respect. In the event that they don't, there are a dozen more places that will, and knowing that, they do not make that mistake. With my tailor having my pattern, and shoemakers having my mold, etc. I can call them up and place an order for a pair of shoes or a belt in any color of the rainbow. Even if I did not have a relationship with them, they would oblige all the same.
Where to start where to start...my mouth is salivating...
I guess this could have been trolled some more for the lulz, but at some point you have to stop the madness.
1. Clearly, none of you understand forum humor over there. I cannot believe you actually thought the person posting "did you tell them who you were" posted that with a straight face. But since you thought it was serious, I will add some fuel to the fire by playing devils advocate. There was a good chance Old foo actually was an important person, as you see, in the real world, men acquire the means to purchase expensive things by gaining power and money through business dealings, as opposed to marrying someone with it. So yes, they should have cared who he was or could have been. I guess they are more-so concerned with not offending some celebrity or wife-of-someone-important.
2. I love how some of you talk about some sort of secret Hermes handshakes (No I did not take that literally). There is virtually nothing exclusive about any of the luxury brands you drool over, they exist to fleece people trying to purchase status. Walking into Dunkin Donuts and walking into Hermes is fundamentally the same thing. They have an unlimited supply of goods, and they should offer the base service possible.
3. The craftsmanship and limited availability some of you talk about is a figment of your imagination. I've been in the factories of every major luxury brand (House? LOL), and it's the same thing now: Immigrants from northen africa and eastern europe working for near minimum wage. Only the tiny custom order workshops actually employ French people, not that they're any better at what they do than anyone else. As far as availability, 10,000 skins of wet blue cow (waits for, "my bag isn't blue!") are only a phonecall away for me or anyone else who know the brokers number, and getting them processed is a piece of cake with every tannery in France working way below capacity because their tanning methods can and are replicated in the "third world", ie Spain (ha) or India and come out costing 60% less.
If I had to put a number to it, I would sau 0.001% of Hermes items are hand sewn, so there is no shortage of labor that can operate a sewing machine, and hand sewing is so easy I'm sure any of your mothers could do it, all you need is thread/bristle and an awl.
4. John Lobb had two branches along with a RTW line. Hermes bought the Paris branch and the RTW line. Lobb still gets royalties. Paris/Hermes owned DOES make bespoke shoes, the Lobb London is not the only one.
5. I love what are listed as "luxury brands". LV makes plastic coated canvas bags sewn by immigrants, what is luxurious about that? I guess you wanted to show how much you know about "luxury brands" by mentioning "breitling". For those who know even the bare minimum about watches and the watch industry, breitling is regarded as one of the worst "swiss" brands, using chinese parts in their ETA movements. Real "luxury" watch brands do the entire engineering of the movement themselves. I did not expect women to know much about watches however, as the only watches sold to them for the most part (99%) are cheap quartz garbage. All the Hermes, LV, etc watches fit the bill here.
6. How could brands made by uneducated minimum wage labor be luxurious? How did this perception start? Some smart businessMEN, like the one who founded this website, had no interest in these things but knew by dumping millions on marketing they could convince the "Jones'" that they need their goods to display their new "status". They were right.
7. The car analogy is inept. There is an enormous amount of original engineering innovation in makers like bmw, benz, etc that justifies their prices somewhat. They spend billions on r&d and need to recoup that amount. "Luxury brands" have nothing to r&d, except marketing, and that's what they spend money on. A better analogy would be spending $100,000 on a Daewoo because they created faux exclusivity by limiting output. Ie, you're a mental midget if you buy into that. There is no fundamental difference between a $50 dollar and $5000 purse.
8. So what is luxury? Once upon a time, my family had 2 seamstresses and a shoemaker as part of their staff. This is not the case anymore, but the places where I purchase my shoes, suits, shirts, etc make my things only by "special order" (what is this, a department store?), and do not require any kind of idiotic "secret handshake". They treat people coming in for their first suit or their 50th with the same level of attention and respect. In the event that they don't, there are a dozen more places that will, and knowing that, they do not make that mistake. With my tailor having my pattern, and shoemakers having my mold, etc. I can call them up and place an order for a pair of shoes or a belt in any color of the rainbow. Even if I did not have a relationship with them, they would oblige all the same.
I got to point 3 but since I've been marking undergrad first-drafts all day I had enough of sexist, clichéd, self-opinionated drivel and fell
^^^^^^
Your handle Icarusdoppelganger sounds cerebral as it is mythical. Somehow, it transported me back to the 80's with the big screen flashing "I for Icarus." Welcome to Purseforum
.
Your handle Icarusdoppelganger sounds cerebral as it is mythical. Somehow, it transported me back to the 80's with the big screen flashing "I for Icarus." Welcome to Purseforum
.