The Northern Line was sticky with heat on the way to work, so I had to go to the bathroom to apply deodorant before I walked out onto the floor of a famous London department store – The Store – where I was working as a personal shopper. There was a 9am appointment I had to be ready for. They were a couple in their thirties. He was no more than 5’4″, dressed in Levi’s and loafers. His girlfriend was blonde, very blonde, and this was her birthday treat. She wanted a dress for ‘going out’. We had prepared the rails of the suite with dresses from Alaïa, Victoria Beckham and Peter Pilotto.
The short man then asked me if I could get him some trousers. I went downstairs and took some off the rails from Gieves and Hawkes – the first suitable ones I could see – and then went back upstairs to give them to him. At The Store, we were told to give clients a longer pair, so they could be tailored up by the in-house atelier. This time, as the short man looked in the mirror and saw the hems of the trousers folding over his feet like a pair of woollen shoes, he realised he looked ridiculous.
He started shouting, telling me that ‘I wasn’t taking him seriously’. The Store had taught us that we should never answer back to a customer, so I walked out of the personal suite and told my colleague, Emily, that she needed to take over.
An hour later, I asked Emily how she had got on with the couple. She turned to me and said, ‘She got more drunk and she didn’t like any of the dresses. But she did get a Gucci handbag.’ This, she told me, was because he had offered to buy it for her on the condition that she reciprocate with anal sex.
Working as a personal shopper wasn’t exactly my dream job. I was studying fashion at university in London. I needed to pay for my rent, travel, food and yes, I wanted some new clothes. I got my job at The Store through ‘Supreme Associates’, a temping agency, who paid me £8 an hour and supplied me with a dull uniform to wear as I patrolled the shop floor. After a while, I was headhunted to join the personal shoppers. Some of my colleagues were amiable enough, but more than a few were vile: a comically vain Brazilian man who cavorted around the store; a botoxed, posh Englishwoman in her early middle age, who boasted that she could afford to send her children to private school.
When I worked there, the eight personal shoppers operated a 1% commission. In theory, they could earn up to £70,000 a year. They saw themselves as ranking above the sales assistants, who stood for eight hours a day at their stalls, while the shoppers went gliding around the floors, operating under the title of ‘personal stylists’. A more accurate job description would be ‘roomfillers’. Before a client turns up, we would fill the private suite with clothes, but hardly with a discerning eye. The Store told us that the aim was to make a client spend £2,000, at the very least.
We would stand either outside the suite or inside the suite, as clients would try items for fit. If the clothes met with approval, a yellow post-it note would be placed by them. At the end of the engagement, we would tally up the desired items and head to the till. The most I ever put through for less than an hour’s work was £24,000.
The personal shopping suite is a changing room with mood lighting. There are no locks on the door, but it does have a fridge stocked with Laurent Perrier champagne and little trays of almond nuts.
