05/03/2007
NYT: Tom Ford Boutique All Spectacle, No Service
The New York Times' Horacio Silva drops in to Tom Ford's recently opened Madison Avenue flagship store and is virtually ignored. Silva: "If my walk-in is any indication, Mr. Ford has confused exclusionary with exclusive." Until the next day, when Silva made an appointment using his own name. Suddenly, "it was Champagne and smiles all around."
Ford has continually touted the emphasis on service and a set of highly-publicized maids and butlers that are supposed to lend the boutique that element, but Silva found a different story:
"When I heard that Mr. Ford had appointed an in-store maid, I assumed that it was a marketing ploy and that a modelesque stunner would walk around in high heels and a feather duster, playfully spanking the hedge-fund guys who were prepared to drop a pretty penny on, say, silk pajamas ($1,900, monogram not included). Not to my taste, by any means, but it would have been a cheeky gesture in keeping with the winking sexual provocation for which he was known at Gucci. The last thing I expected was a display of help-as-spectacle that reminded me of the Brazilian haute department store Daslu, which employs hundreds of maids for the benefit of traveling robber-baron princesses. The security guards and curtained windows brought to mind the closed-door policy of Bijan in the ’80s, a shop that is now confined to the annals of retail history."
Shape up, Mr. Ford, is Silva's conclusion:
"An unintentionally hilarious parody of a pretentious Madison Avenue boutique, the store reeks of arriviste Anglophilic posturing dressed up as aristocratic gentlemanly refinement. For all the preopening ballyhoo about the it’s-all-about-you customization and details like buttons on trouser cuffs so that your butler can brush away the remains of the day — at last! — the reality is more akin to a luxury store in a second-tier market during the mid-’90s."
Ouch.
No Store is a Hero to Its Valet [nyt]
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Ha! I love it.
Posted by: shane | May 3, 2007 10:05:21 AM
I was there the week after it opened. Everyone at least said hello or nodded. I was lucky in approaching one young man to ask a question and he stayed with me for the enire time I was in the store until my purchases were rung up. His supervisor made him start his lunch break and someone else did the paperwork. As a manager, I would not have done that. He should have let him complete the sale and then go to lunch.
I'm not sure what would have happened if I hadn't approached the young man. Would someone have finally approached me with words? Asked if I needed some help? Started pointing towards items? I don't think they had their "act" together yet. The one thing that kept popping up is when I asked a specific question about an item or the cost of something. No one had it on the tips of their tungues. They had to look it up. I gave them, "It's only been a week" thought, but I shouldn't have.
Mr. Ford or the manager maybe needed to wait another week so that the staff was informed about the merchandise fully.
Will I go back next time I am in New York? If it's still open, yes, just to see if things improved. Oh, and because I found a couple of things there that I haven't been able to find elsewhere.
Posted by: mike/ | May 3, 2007 10:27:47 AM
and gawker thought he was mad for being left off of the Out 100. Tom Ford=devil.
Posted by: jjwz | May 3, 2007 10:49:40 AM
Sounds like every store on Rodeo Drive.
Posted by: Tom | May 3, 2007 11:00:25 AM
At last a place where vacuous empty-headed elitist ass hats can shop and flatter each other while being fawned over by swooning retail sycophants.
Posted by: ggreen | May 3, 2007 11:27:36 AM
$1,900 silk pajamas
Uhm you can get great 100% silk pajamas for $300 over the internet and not have to pay the $1,600 for ford's name
Better yet, what I do, buy some silk from a fabric store and pay a seamstress to make them specificaly for you. 2 pairs = $100 also silk sheets done this way = $230
I spoiled myself the first time, now it is an addiction. i can never ever ever go back to sleeping on cotton sheets. I highly recomend people try this. I do white silk charmuse and have a great little korean seamstress. They last about 1.5 years with washings once a month. Well worth the indulgence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sleeping butt naked in between silk sheets is amazing!!!!!!
Anyway; the point was about $1,900 for silk pajamas???? way way way way way too much for Ford's name
Posted by: pacificoceanboy | May 3, 2007 1:13:24 PM
I meant once a week
LOL washing once a month would make them last longer but then you would have sticky and stinky sheets
Posted by: pacificoceanboy | May 3, 2007 1:23:46 PM
well, maybe he couldn't get away with charging 1,900 for pajamas if pretentious asswipes didn't BUY them. alas, NYC's well-heeled won't even think twice about it.
Posted by: Martin | May 3, 2007 2:06:10 PM
Mr. Ford is too young to have experienced Wilkes-Bashford service in San Francisco. Ford and his staff might go train anonymously by shopping on the Via Della Spiga and Via Montenapoleone in Milan.
A name will get customers to the door and that's all that price mark-up will do.
Posted by: Oakpeterca | May 3, 2007 8:18:08 PM