Over the last weekend I made a trip to Paris to boost the economy. This mission was completed with Louis Vuitton (LV) being the main beneficiary. After a short train ride and an even shorter metro ride, we found ourselves in the heart of Paris, and beheld one of the bastions of French luxury goods:
I experienced rude service in a previous visit to LV, but this time nothing bad happened. We were in fact fortunate that the LV employee who came up to assist us was a fellow Singaporean, as he gave us extra tips on what to see in Paris. He was also very good at recommending which bag/accessory would suit us better.
He also made expressos so we had the pleasure of sipping them in the middle of the shop, which was a luxury I didn’t experience in an earlier visit years ago. The main store was bustling, yet not as crazy as the branch at Ngee Ann City in Singapore, where I’ve seen a queue snaking round the corner, but it was definitely good business. Which begs the question: What recession?? The rich remain rich and those with a lot of savings are in fact probably benefiting from overall lower prices and discounts. It is a known fact that buying LV in Paris and getting tax rebates is a better deal than buying the same item back in Singapore.
Not surprisingly there were many Asian tourists snapping up LV goods, and a good proportion of the LV staff were Asians themselves. I think it helps the sale when your salesperson can speak the same language as you, and may also have come from the same culture. I noticed some customers who were speaking in a distinctly mainland Chinese accent. I think there were quite a few other groups of customers from neighbouring regions as well.
I am glad I finally got myself a good passport holder. The last one I had was a free gift that crumbled after some years of use and dirtied my passport and the bag holding it! As with many other things in my life I would prefer to pay a greater price for something I know would be longer-lasting. Unlike many other females, I don’t like shopping very much. I find it stressful to have to keep replacing things and matching exact shades of colour. Sometimes, however, there are impulses… such as this:
I needed a nice reddish bag to go with a dress I’m planning to wear to my dear Cypriot friend Demetra’s wedding this weekend. Also, I used this bag at the INSEAD Summer Ball (to be covered in my INSEAD blog…) because the theme was ‘A Touch of Gold’. I hope up to this point my female readers appreciate my description and photos 😉
There was a jazz festival going on in Paris but I decided to give it a miss. Instead I bought some jazz CDs. There were some good discounts from stores like Virgin and even FNAC. Despite the weather report saying it should be sunny in Paris, I never believed it totally and sure enough, it drizzled for a while.
Anyway we went back tired but happy, just in time to rest and prepare ourselves for the Ball…