How the Other Half Lives
"I pay retail! Wheeeeeeeeeee!" Image courtesy of WSJ.com
If you work in the fashion industry, chances are your closet is full of goodie bag scores, sample sale finds and gifts from friends/brands. In other words: YOU DON'T BUY RETAIL. Because, why would you? You know what the mark-ups are like, necessary though they may be. [Full Disclosure: my entire outfit today came out of a goodie bag. True story.]
There are some ladies, however, who pay retail prices like it's going out of style. Why? They're loaded, that's why. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story about women who can afford to drop $74,000 on a single four-item shopping spree at Balmain.
According to the article, "Such women are among the most valuable clients of designers and luxury department stores such as Neiman Marcus Inc. and Saks Inc." No kidding.
Belle of the full-price retail ball. Image Courtesy of WSJ.com
So, how do stores land women like these as loyal clients?
1) They build relationships with them. Savvy on-staff personal shoppers become fashion besties with them = fashion co-dependency = big bucks.
2) They send clothes to their homes so these women can try stuff on in the privacy of their own homes. "When you're in a store and you've got someone staring at you in your underwear in a fitting room, it's hard to imagine what you have at home that's going to go with this $3,500 jacket," one says. Touche.
3) They have a variety of fancy finery. Because the kind of women who drop that kind of cash on clothes probably have lots of different places they go. You know, charity galas, the country club... charity galas. For example, Christine Chiu wears most items only once. The 28-year-old, who is married to the founder of Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery, goes to events every night of the weekâoften making multiple wardrobe changes in a single night, the WSJ says. "If you're going to a gala for some kind of disease and then you go to a hip art event, you can't wear the same thing," Ms. Chiu says. See? Variety.
See a slideshow of these magnificent creatures in their non-sale rack duds here.
