Mafoofan struggles to buy breast wallet at Hermes . . . arises victorious!

[Baron]

Originally Posted by Eustace Tilley

Foo: Hermes is infamous for this type of attitude for new custom orders. I suggest you go to Cleverley - you'll get a product that is just as nice for 60-70% of the Hermes' price.

The Cleverly Russian calf breast wallet I saw at Leather Sole BH was really great. I think it was around $700.

 

[Bull]

Originally Posted by SkinnyGoomba

Price so far has only been an issue for people responding to this thread.

I have no idea what this comment means. If someone wants to spend an outsized sum on a wallet, more power to them. I am only making a comment as to asking about price. Certain stores know that they have a mix of outrageously wealthy customers and just ordinary wealthy customers (like Barneys), and so they are more than willing to talk about price tags. At the Hermes shop here in Chicago, my wife was looking at scarves, and merely fumbling for the tag to check price elicited glares from the stuffy staff. C'mon, it's Hermes. They're used to women coming in and dropping $100k on a *bad* day. The last thing the sales associates have to time to do is **** around with someone buying a single scarf or wallet. Sorry, but at certain retail outlets, the sales staff is trained to write people off if they don't look serious. My buddy J works for Gold Coast Motors and he can tell if someone is going to buy a Rari or a Bentley or a Phantom or a Bugatti within the first 3 seconds. If not, he barely acknowledges them. That's just how these places work.

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by Icarus

You should have pretended to be important Japanese performer, Razor Ramon Sumitani.

FTFY

 

[whnay.]

Originally Posted by gladhands

Man walks into store during holiday season. Man leaves upset that they would not sell him a product that they did not have.

It sucks that the SA could not tactfully convey the fact that they only do custom orders for the big ballers, but at the end of the day, we have a man complaining about not being sold an item that doesn't exist. The level of entitlement is astounding.

This is just not true. Hermes prides itself on custom worksmanship in all of its forms - it's built its reputation on it. A young guy walking into the flagship store in the States and asking for a custom order is a dream client for them.

 

[Sazerac]

You could also argue that any car you buy above the price of a Honda Accord is a pointless waste of money. The differential between an Accord and, say, an Audi A6 is north of $20,000. Such a thing represents an enormously higher level of indulgence than a $900 (or whatever) wallet.

(Incidentally, you'll keep the wallet for the rest of your life, whereas with the Audi, you'll ditch it in six years and drop another $20k over the Accord's price on another one. I say this as an enthusiastic Audi owner, btw, so I'm not being all judgey-judgey on them, either.)

 

[whnay.]

Originally Posted by Bull

The last thing the sales associates have to time to do is **** around with someone buying a single scarf or wallet.

Don't SAs at places like Hermes make $14 an hour?!?!?

 

[Crane's]

Originally Posted by Jay

I can't believe such terrible service is offered at such a high-end retailer. I do remember walking into Hermes, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, etc. in Waikiki with my ex in beach clothes and receiving excellent service from SAs. I think it's very egalitarian there because they can't really size you up.

I can't believe it either.

An SA who plays the sizing up game is an idiot. I've met some of the people in Sam Walton's family. You know, the guy who started Walmart. All of them are billionaires and you wouldn't really know it by looking at them.

I'm surprised Foo that you would want to continue doing business with these people. I know I certainly would not after that escapade.

 

[MBreinin]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

It never ceases to amaze me how many people visit internet forums, largely consisting of others' writings, only to not actually read anything.

I never said it was going to cost $2,000.

The entire purpose of the visit was to do a special order for a wallet in a particular color. Your choice to paint me as ungrateful or unappreciative ignores this fact, as well as the nature of marriage. "Gifts" between us are not so much the result of one spouse's generosity with his or her own money (as we share everything), but an expression of affection and caring.

I'm glad that your wallet from 1996 is still holding up, but I have no clue what that has to do with anything.

I actually read the entire post. I had no clue how much the wallet cost until someone else pointed it out.

I was not painting you as ungrateful. My point was that this was quite a generous gift and instead of making the lives of my spouse and myself difficult, I would have just chosen one from stock and enjoyed it. It would have been so simple...."Wow, when I came in I was deadset on dark green, but now that I have seen this color, I actually prefer it!"

My quite extensive marriage experience tells me this would have been an effective tactic, rather than insisting on the custom color which they obviously did not want to sell me.

Just my take on things.

Mike

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

Originally Posted by Bull

I have no idea what this comment means. If someone wants to spend an outsized sum on a wallet, more power to them. I am only making a comment as to asking about price. Certain stores know that they have a mix of outrageously wealthy customers and just ordinary wealthy customers (like Barneys), and so they are more than willing to talk about price tags. At the Hermes shop here in Chicago, my wife was looking at scarves, and merely fumbling for the tag to check price elicited glares from the stuffy staff. C'mon, it's Hermes. They're used to women coming in and dropping $100k on a *bad* day. The last thing the sales associates have to time to do is **** around with someone buying a single scarf or wallet. Sorry, but at certain retail outlets, the sales staff is trained to write people off if they don't look serious. My buddy J works for Gold Coast Motors and he can tell if someone is going to buy a Rari or a Bentley or a Phantom or a Bugatti within the first 3 seconds. If not, he barely acknowledges them. That's just how these places work.
Maybe I missed it, but I didnt see him mention price anywhere in a way that indicated that he wasn't going to pay it. We're talking about buying signals and honestly there were plenty of them in the OP, I'm halfway kidding in that he needs to be a bit more of a bigtimer, but any SA who wants to make a living should be assuming he wants to buy until they find out otherwise. I appreciate your friends experience at Gold Coast, but buying a bentley and buying a wallet are hardly comparable.

 

[PoodleMommy]

To the OP, It sounds like you are "somebody", because they didn't know it was "you!"
Trust me, H doesn't care a fig who you are if you give them attitude. Perhaps, they didn't know what the heck a breast pocket was. You went in there annoyed to begin with. And, you were not educated in Hermes to understand that you just can't go into an H Boutique and ask for a green pebbled calfskin wallet. They could have shown you a pebbled bullskin wallet or a pebbled goat skin wallet, but you asked for calfskin. You asked for a color that is most likely not in the SLG (small leather goods) collection currently.
Judging from the dialog you memorized you well, you know what you want so much.
As for the wallet costing so much. They are handmade, as you must know. Some cost as much as an inexpensive bag. The wallets are a work of art. They are as much a piece of art as a Birkin or a Constance.
I believe green is going to be a big spring/summer color. Perhaps you could wait until then.
I didn't know this forum existed until somebody on my beloved forum posted your silly post for the pure craziness of it. To own a piece of H is to love it, to have a relationship with an H SA is also important. There is so much more to H than the actual piece of leather. Maybe you are just not "worthy," whoever you are.

 

[Bull]

Originally Posted by whnay.

Don't SAs at places like Hermes make $14 an hour?!?!?

I would certainly be willing to bet that there is a commission component. I would be very surprised if not. I poked around the intranets to try to find the answer, but could not.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

They probably do quite well, You're not going to get someone to work at your Madison Ave flagship without compensating them.

Mind you alot of these people are probably wives of bigtimers that are looking for something to do with their time outside of lunching.

 

[MBreinin]

Originally Posted by PoodleMommy

To the OP, It sounds like you are "somebody", because they didn't know it was "you!"
Trust me, H doesn't care a fig who you are if you give them attitude. Perhaps, they didn't know what the heck a breast pocket was. You went in there annoyed to begin with. And, you were not educated in Hermes to understand that you just can't go into an H Boutique and ask for a green pebbled calfskin wallet. They could have shown you a pebbled bullskin wallet or a pebbled goat skin wallet, but you asked for calfskin. You asked for a color that is most likely not in the SLG (small leather goods) collection currently.
Judging from the dialog you memorized you well, you know what you want so much.
As for the wallet costing so much. They are handmade, as you must know. Some cost as much as an inexpensive bag. The wallets are a work of art. They are as much a piece of art as a Birkin or a Constance.
I believe green is going to be a big spring/summer color. Perhaps you could wait until then.
I didn't know this forum existed until somebody on my beloved forum posted your silly post for the pure craziness of it. To own a piece of H is to love it, to have a relationship with an H SA is also important. There is so much more to H than the actual piece of leather. Maybe you are just not "worthy," whoever you are.

Holy ****, are you that woman who collects and takes pictures of the Hermes boxes your purchases have come in?

Worthy? WORTHY? He has money to spend at a retail establishment, does he need an engraved invitation to purchase something from Hermes? Do you know how arrogant and foolish you sound making such pronouncements?

Mike

 

[Vintage Gent]

Hell, this was better than half the stuff Albee's written over the past 20 years.

 

[lee_44106]

Foo,

seems like you are very insistent that the breastpocket wallet be Hermes or nothing else.

So what is your new strategy going to be in order to procure this product?