Thought I’d post some additional photos from the Neiman Marcus charity gala (I have mixed feelings about the word “gala” . . . it sounds like a regular old party putting on airs) that we attended on Thursday, September 10th — which just so happened to coincide with the Fashion’s Night Out project that Anna Wintour flogged to the media as a way of getting consumers to the stores to rescue the cratering fortunes of the once high-flying high-fashion industry.
Louise is delighted at the presence of Jil Sander.
There were mixed reports on the success of Fashion’s Night Out, with the least breathless of the bunch being this Huffington Post, er, “post” from fashion writer Alex Geana:
Retailers Learn that Open Bar Does Not Equal Sales: Fashion’s Night Out is a Bust: “I popped into a cab and got an amicable driver. I asked him about the night. At the beginning he picked up an excited retailer. Then he proceeded to pick up people excited about free food . . . I asked if he picked up people full of shopping bags at any time during the night — enough bags to cover the copious amounts of free booze, food and celebrity appearances. He said no.”
I got the same impression from the corporate office and commercial real-estate crowd at the gala party.
A sales assistant attempts to interest skeptical party goers in a fur coat.
Nonetheless, Julie, Louise and I did the best we could to shore up Neiman Marcus’ presently flagging fortunes at our far flung Bellevue, Washington location, even if no one else was joining in.
Julie hams it up in Valentino, St. John and Roberto Cavalli.
There were no celebrity appearances at the Bellevue party, either (well, unless you count Magic Johnson as a celebrity; I mean — if I were to do a random sampling of people on the street, would half the respondents even know who he is anymore?), but the booze was generous, the food was good, the live salsa music fun (though there was a DJ on the third floor in the men’s department, spinning some fun 70′s funk) and the sales people very helpful.
“More wine, sir?”
Really, the only departments that saw much action were the women’s shoe and maybe the cosmetics departments. Pretty much every clothing sales assistant we saw was drumming his/her fingers on the countertops, waiting for someone (anyone!) to pull out a credit card and buy something (anything!).
A Cinderella moment, replete with live saxophonist.
The shopping bags that Louise and Julie walked out with (after excitedly conquering the shoes) were some of the few shopping bags I saw all night. Plenty of talking, drinking and eating going on, but not a whole lot else.
It’s a smorgasbord of lookie-loos at the Creed counter.
But the event was likely a success in that it introduced a hopefully spendy crowd to the Neiman Marcus merchandise — much of which has been previously unavailable in Seattle area stores. You could order it on the net, yes, but actually going and trying on brands like Jil Sander and Chanel in-store was a luxury that Bellevue shoppers have had to forego . . . until today.
The downtown Nordstrom and Barneys (and probably Mario’s and Butch Blum, too) have carried high-end names all along — but not all gathered together like this under one roof. That’s the appeal of Neiman Marcus.
Louise critically appraises herself in Pringle of Scotland.
But we’ll have to wait and see if there’s the client base here in the Pacific Northwest to keep all of these ventures afloat. Mario’s, Butch Blum, Nordstrom and Barney’s have been struggling lately as it is, with 50%-70% off sales sometimes not even enough to draw in the shoppers needed — now that Neiman Marcus has crash-landed into the vicinity, the mad scramble for the luxury client’s dollars has grown just that much more intense.
See Friday’s Part 1 entry at the following link: Neiman Marcus Pre-Grand Opening Party in Bellevue, Washington: Part 1
