I don't know about the greater LA area, but internet lore has it that some of the traditional shops--Andover Shop and Cable Car Clothiers--are of the snob variety. However, given that the genesis of this lore is from Ask Cruiser, one would have to take it with severe doubt.
Last edited by Incroyable (2008-05-04 00:10:57)
I've not yet been to CC (Chris_H often pops in though), but I've never found The Andover Shop snobbish.
I suspect there are those who might want it to be a snobbish or elitist place, but in reality it's just a shop. Smile at people & they will smile back at you most of the time.
I'm feeling very wise today.
Last edited by Russell_Street (2008-05-04 01:29:30)
Back in the day, I got a lot of attitude at Fred Hayman and Rocco in Beverly Hills.
On the subject of LA shopping, my uncle used to by shoes at a shop where the sales people were all topless girls. Since there seem to be some LA old timers here, did either of you ever come across this place. I imagine that it was a pretty high end establishment as he has always dressed extremely well.
This store is about the snootiest I've seen, however you'll need to relocate...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiDt3J1g6Q
Last edited by formby (2008-05-04 09:03:48)
Last edited by formby (2008-05-04 09:40:20)
Last edited by captainpreppy (2008-05-04 15:14:59)
I don't know about LA, but in San Francisco, I find the sales staff at Wilkes Bashford rather snobbish and other local people I know have the same, if not worse, opinion. In particular this petite woman with the eyeglasses who told me that most of their customers buy their pocket squares by the dozen after she realized that I was humbly buying a single $75 pocket square.
Last edited by Cruz Diez (2008-05-04 17:54:21)
For reasons unknown to me, women usually voice complaints about the harshl treatment they receive in stores catering to women. Having been treated royally at Bergdorfs over the years, shopping for gifts for females, I suggested them to a female colleague in need of something for herself. She soon returned in disgust saying she had never been treated so rudely in her life.
"Advanced Designers" floor, Bergdorf Goodman Men.
Some of the most obnoxious, prissy, cendescending male eunuchs I've ever come across work on that floor,and, all of that I could excuse if they were remotely attractive(don't ask whatcha really don't wanna know, fellas).
I'd just begun shopping there on the lower floors. Picked up one of most beautiful cabuchon(?)sapphire stud sets I'll ever see formal shirt, scarf, etc. Nice guys all around down there. They don't hover. Went there during a Kiton trunk show, which is a story in and of itself. I still laugh myself silly about all of the snobby people that the Kiton rep & I pissed off because he asked me to try on so much of their gear!
Anyway, I took a former 'friend' of mine shopping there for his b-day. We were, rather, I was treated with such disdain by the sales staff during the entire excursion, I told my 'friend' that I wanted to leave, but, he was/is a shallow status-freak(one of the reasons we're no longer friends), so, I relented. At the end of it all, the SOB who rang up the purchases, which came to about $3G had the nerve to ask me for 2 pieces of picture ID when I gave him my charge card, which, IIRC, is aganst the law.
Needless to say, I haven't been to that floor since.
Come to think of it, I haven't shopped there, period, since then.
I haven't figured out if the dreadful staff at Peter Elliot are snobby or just indifferent.
Anent the topic of snotty female salespeople treating women worse than male customers, I asked my wife about this. She said if she had been ill-treated by a saleswoman, she never noticed it or at least put it behind her immediately. And she does shop some pretty high-end establishments--Neimans, Saks, Barneys, the Beverly Hills Polo, places like that.
I think one reason women are generally nastier in their interrelations with people of either sex than men is that men learn at a very early age that being too nasty can garner you a knuckle sandwich in short order. This is less true for women, and women can usually rely on the strong inhibitions we feel against offering violence to their sex. I often think it is a tribute to the forbearance and general good nature of men that women are not slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands, if not the millions, annually in the USA alone!
I'll have to say that the number of times I've had poor service in higher-end menswear establishments has been minuscule. I can remember at one time wanting to buy a tie from a display at Nordstrom's, but the only salesgirl around was too busy yakking on the phone on an obvious personal call. Eventually I left the store in disgust. Not really "snobbery," though.