By now, Danielle has realised that I am a little lost with her jargon. I ask her then to take me through the ropes of a personal shopper. I discover that contrary to what I had imagined, a personal shopper does not only deal with clothes but the full range of products Selfridges has to offer. This can go from 'homewear’ for instance (bed and table linen as well as dinner sets), to mobile phones. Not long ago, she had to buy a gold plated Nokia mobile phone for £15,000 for a client. For another she was asked to order four hundred crispy cream doughnuts! For Danielle nothing is impossible. She can carry out her clients' Christmas shopping and find tons of ideas for them. She seems to find the idea of spending a fortune on someone else’s behalf rather exciting.
The more I speak to Danielle, the more I realise that she truly likes her work for the relationship she establish with her clientele. “My relationship with my clients is much more than professional”, she claims. “My clients do not hesitate to call me outside our normal hours of business when they have a wardrobe crisis”.
For her, it is very important to make her clients feel at ease and relaxed so she tries to be as “friendly” as possible. She believes that if a client has no confidence in your ability then she will not come back and all your efforts have been lost. French and British customers are different. French customers are more direct. They tell you if they do not like something. With British customers, you have to be able to read between the lines. It takes more time to understand what they like and dislike.
Even if Danielle knows that she is a glorified sales assistant, she strongly believes that she also has to be very a good psychologist. I find that hard to understand but Danielle argues by giving me a few examples of what she means: « People see a psychologist to feel good from within. I have exactly the same work but I make feel good from the outside. My role is to make my clients feel more confident.” Even if I am not convinced, I do sense that Danielle she does make a connection with the people she dresses. « Yesterday, a charming lady came to see me with her two daughters. She had a prosthetic arm and was a little awkward about it. She was after some clothes that would have both long sleeves and be “trendy”. I managed to find her some rather cool clothes. When she left, she kissed me and she asked one of her daughters to take a picture of us. When I got home, I realised that that is what makes me like my work. It does not matter how much clients spend it is about the contact I have with them.”
Most of Danielle’s customers are British. Some come from Ireland or from the Middle East. Many are business women who come to see her twice a year, others are housewives who do not want to look to ‘mumsy’ despite the fact that all they have to do is take little Johnny to the nursery and then go to the gym. They know that either “they have not got the time” or that “they have lost their sense of what fits them and what doesn’t”.
“But you know, I also do men” she tells me with a smile. The men, you really have to go and get them. They simply do not come by themselves. Most of them have been sent to me by their wife.”
In this superficial world of luxury in which Danielle works, I cannot help asking her whether the credit crunch has affected her trade and the way her clients shop. She reveals, a little ill at ease, that “yes, I have had less new clients that I would normally have had but the old clients have made up for it by spending more than they usually do”. It looks as though her well-off clients have not been affected by the economic crisis. Personal shoppers, be re-assured your job is safe for the moment.
I have to admit that before I met Danielle, I had many reservations about her line of work. I saw her work as that of a fashion guru, a coach. I asked her to tell me if I were right but she point blank refused to be compared to them. This led me to think that in her eyes the term ‘coach’ had a somewhat negative connotation.
My next questions also received the same adamant answers: “Do you think that the women who come to see you are looking for the perfect image? «No» she answers. She does accept the fact, however, that the women she dresses try, to a certain extent, to look like the models seen in magazines…
To conclude, when I ask Danielle if she has plans to go back to France when she retires, she pouts. I gather she is not ready for that yet.Nevertheless, she still has ties with France and goes to Paris on a regular basis to speak ‘fashion’, bien sûr to other personal shoppers in le Printemps, les Galeries Lafayette ou encore au Bon Marché!
COMMENTS:
23/09/2010 - contact said :
Les filles moi je connais aussi Au Boudoir de Babou, une agence globale de personal shopper sur paris. http://www.auboudoirdebabou.com/ Les personal shopper vous accompagne poru votre shopping ou l effectue a distance poru vous et vous livre sous 48 heures!
le top!
PErsonal shopper in Paris!!!!
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