ysl_shoes
Originally uploaded by FunCupcake.
Okay, I know you are all hanging on to the edge of your seats, checking the blog to see how my temporary job is going! Hah! Well it goes a little something like this. Nestled between the impressive Louis Vuitton store on Madison Avenue and the Burberry, Bally and Chanel store on 57th, is a little store I’ll call Yves. St. Laurent. YSL is owned by the company who also owns Gucci. Impressed? Well not only is this little store the number one YSL store in the U.S. (in sales) it’s number 3 in the world. Let’s just say, people come here to throw down cash, there’s none of this selling snow to an eskimo business. We are selling frosty mugs ‘o beer to thirsty construction workers. Well not really, we’re selling fancy things to celebrities, socialites, and just rich people in general. Apparantly Usher comes in several times a month, Missy Elliott was in last month, and yesterday Julia Roberts’ stylist was in picking up samples for the People’s Choice awards.. Never a dull moment, that’s for sure.
The store is a classy, modern, 3 floors full of sumptious leather handbags and small leather goods, including belts and wallets, YSL make-up and fragrance, and of course footwear, and on the third floor is the ready-to-wear (apparel.) When you walk in a guard in a black suit greets you and opens the door for you and you are then free to saunter around oohing and ahhing over the lovely goods, that average around $1500 each. You will be greeted by helpful sales staff, who are very friendly and wearing lovely brown and black suits. If you like, we may serve you champagne or perrier, or perhaps coffee or tea. You will drink out of porcelin and be served on a tray. In the background, lovely, romantic but modern music plays.
I was really worried about the place being too prententious for my style, but as far as my fellow co-workers go, this is not the case. Maybe it’s the NYC attitude, but I get the feeling that people just don’t have time or energy to act fancy or snobby. The customers are shopping at leisure, they have time and energy to act however they please. Although I’ve spent a little time on the floor, the majority of my work has been behind the scenes, in the basement or in a stockroom. Inventory is usually a crappy task to either prep. for or participate in. It’s tedious and repetitive and it seems to never end. This is the case in stores with massive amounts of quantity. At Yves St. Laurent, we have fewer items, and they are all the kind of item you WANT to touch. Fabulous trimming and detail on everything, the finest fabrics, the best styling. Everything made in Italy, designed in France, you get the idea. So checking 800 pairs of shoeboxes would be awful if you had to handle crappy shoes. After all, you are in the intestines of the shop, right down there next to the rat poison and dust bunnies, but somehow, caressing that beautiful leather isn’t so bad when it’s a beautiful product. I know, I just said beautiful and rat poison in the same sentence….
This job has a lot of variety, I’m physically active, doing something different every hour or so, interacting with all sorts of people, and my fellow workers are all very warm, welcoming, and hilarious, which when you’ve just looked at the 300th pair of Johnny boots and you’re about to go cross-eyed, you really need humor - it’s definitely how people interact at work, nobody is acting like we’re saving the world. I can’t say enough about the crew, the sales staff are charming and interesting and funny, they have to be, they make commission! In short, the job is going well! I don’t know how long it will last, but for now, they have put me on the schedule on a Monday through Friday shift, given me a work pager to carry around in case someone needs to find me, and a set of keys (to the stockroom at least!) and a work uniform (suit) (can you call YSL clothing and footwear a uniform? yeah, I guess you can, if you’re wearing a lovely brown sweater that retails for $600, no matter that you’re snagging it on hangers and sweating in it. And the YSL tailor sorts out all of your hemming needs…) I will do this job until people in Footwear start getting back from the holidays and Asian development travel and I can finally get in for my second interview for the much-coveted footwear design position! p.s. what do you think of my camerphone on my Motorola Razr cell phone? Is it mugshot-ish? Nevermind the quality, I thought it was covert and clever to snap a shot of my work area, much better than a glossy one of the front of the store which you can find on some other website, right??
