Keaton

Review of Yves Saint Laurent

I ve thought long and hard about whether to post a...

I ve thought long and hard about whether to post a review here or not. I ve been meaning to get in touch with the Saint Laurent customer service, but - as it turns out - anno 2014 the brand has discontinued its services in that department, so there is no channel through which to contact them anymore. Once a high-end house (or any brand, actually) turns a deaf ear to constructive feedback, that s probably not a positive development.
To my big dismay, I've had a ghastly experience at the Saint Laurent store. In view of other, fairly positive, positive reviews on the internet I'm trying to believe that my treatment - or lack thereof - was an exception, but I doubt it, somehow.
As part of a recent trip to Paris my wife and I wanted to purchase a new bag for me. Upon entering the store, no one even bothered to say hello. Instead, there was bad electronic music banging from invisible speakers. Curiously, when we were approaching the men's section, there was plenty of staff around, but not a single one of them came even close to offering any sort of service. My feeling was that, at best, we were tolerated and, at worst, blithely ignored.
Interestingly, there were quite a few other clients in the store, none of whom I would have remotely identified as a Saint Laurent consumer, sipping Champagne on the house and playing around with a couple of cheap accessories. Apparently, service was not simply absent, it s just that we were not serviced. After no one had approached us within 15 minutes, we left, crestfallen and disheartened. There's luxury and there's Saint Laurent, or so it seems. I'd be curious to learn what Mr. Saint Laurent himself, so famously a trailblazer of top-end retail experiences, would have thought of what has become of his brand...