Love at Louis Vuitton

While waiting for a table to free up at Khansama, we all strolled over to the uber-pricey shops in UB City to window-shop. As expected, most of the shops were empty and patrolled by bored sales staff and security guards.

The only store that had a sizable number of people was the Louis Vuitton store. I entered the store feeling a bit buoyed by the following facts:

• Moi dressed well, and so not intimidated by poshness of store.
• The sales people looked very busy handling the crowd, so need not fear that I would stick out, get undue attention. When I have no intention of buying, I hate having sales people around, it just makes me feel guilty for fingering the merchandise without following through…
• The snubnose was with her dad wreaking havoc at the Rolex showroom.

Came away from the shop pretty impressed. Most “phoren” stores in India seem to have only 2/3 years old stuff, which they sell at huge markups. The LV store here is different. They do have tons of variety…lot of oldie but goodie styles. But also some of the newer models. In addition, they are not kept beneath glass cases (at least not the majority of the stuff), so you do feel free to walk around and touch the leather…basically a very comfortable atmosphere.

The store had some of the standard monogram bags, which just looked pretty dowdy to me. Just not into that brown color and the obvious branding.

A couple of the monogrammed bags stood out though…flashy but fun…just not my style, but very nice nonetheless and they look prettier in the flesh than in these photos…

Apart from the standard monogrammed bags, they also do have a variety of discreet LV bags. My mom liked this huge black goat skin shopper.

On enquiring the price, we came to know that it is Rs. 1,60,000. Gasp! Gulp!pretend not to be surprised, and discreetly move to the wallets section, where the stuff has to be lower-priced!

I loved the International patent leather wallet in the deep wine color (the middle one in the image below):

This was a little bit more within my budget.

I also liked the Epi as well:

My Impressions of the Store

When I walked in, I was very apprehensive as I was expecting snooty sales people who would not bother to engage with me. Something that is unfortunately very common in high-end stores 🙁

However, the sales lady was super friendly and co-operative, patiently showing us various colors and designs, even though I assured her that I was only window-shopping and not actually going to buy anything.

Her attitude and helpfulness really encouraged me to ask questions and get more info about the products. Hey, it’s expensive stuff…good to ask questions, right ?

All in all, my first visit to a high-end designer store was not as intimidating as I expected it to be…

Quite nice, in fact 🙂

After returning home, I went online and checked the dollar prices for the stuff…the price is actually the same. Of course, the tax structure would be different and may affect the price…but hey, not too bad, huh!