With the announcement that Nicolas Ghesquiere is now the creative director for Louis Vuitton, this seems as good a time as any to see how his successor, Alexander Wang, is doing at Balenciaga. All from my point of view, of course, not a boring business analysis.
Accessories-wise, I had always been a loyal Celine fan, but unwittingly, over the last couple of months, I suddenly became a Balenciaga girl. It started in London, when I was there in May. I had lunch at Scott’s and afterwards, wandered into the Balenciaga store on the same street, where I purchased this bracelet that became one of my favourites.
I suppose it’s no surprise that I would suddenly find myself a Balenciaga fan. After all, I have liked Alexander Wang since he first launched his maxi dresses. I even once tagged along to my friend’s interview with him, where I shamelessly pushed myself into their picture below. I'm the one who just jumped in on the side, obviously.
In September, when I was looking for a birthday present for my sister online, I totally fell head over heels with this leather “B” bracelet from Balenciaga. It was available in beige and in black from Barney’s, and my plan was to buy both and let her choose one, and I’d keep the other, because I’m selfless like that. However, that became a whole drama as for some reason, Barney’s claimed that their shipping agency, Borderfree, would not ship those items to Hong Kong.
I went to the closest Balenciaga to me, at the Landmark, to enquire if they had the bracelet, but strangely enough, that store is still under the management of Joyce and was filled to the brim with piles of the Motorcycle and Arena bags, which quite frankly I did not know were even still made after 2004. The staff there told me that if I wanted the full Alexander Wang-designed accessories collection, I would need to go to the Balenciaga in either Harbour City or Elements. The whole thing just became too much trouble, so I moved on and got my sister something else.
More recently, I was again online shopping, and spied a beautiful bag from Wang’s Le Dix collection. The Le Dix Cartable Zip (in the very first picture on this post) was available on Neiman Marcus but their website was down, and sold out on Mytheresa, so on Halloween, I decided to call the Harbour City store to ask if they had any in stock. I was told by the salesperson that they did, indeed, have one in stock. Hong Kong had received only one of the Le Dix Zip bag, the one I coveted. As it was after-work on Thursday night, I asked if they could possibly hold it until Saturday, when I could leisurely cross over to Tsim Sha Tsui’s Harbour City store to have a look. To my surprise, they said it was against their company policy to keep anything on hold. At this point, the need to have the bag completely overwhelmed my rational side, and I decided that I would go to TST right away. So I asked the salesgirl, Haze, whether she could keep it on hold for 15 minutes while I jumped on the MTR.
Unbelievably, she said that she would do her best, but that if in the 15 minutes while I was en route, another customer came in to look at the bag, she would be forced to sell it to her. So while I battled hordes of people coming off work, as well as partygoers heading into town dressed in their Halloween costumes, and finally threw myself onto a wall of people to get on a train, I had to keep her on the phone to try to talk some sense into her. Yes, this is a first world problem, but I can’t think of any other store in Hong Kong or even the world where they would treat a guaranteed customer this way and refuse to make any exceptions in the name of good customer service.
Eventually I got there and thankfully, the bag was as beautiful in real-life as they were in pictures. I love how structured it is and also you have the option of holding it by the top-handle with a skirt or dress, or using the shoulder strap to wear as a cross-body on the weekends. I also saw the belt version of the leather “B” bracelet I had originally wanted, so I got that as well, since I didn’t know when I would next be in TST.
Basically, to summarise a very long story, Alexander Wang for Balenciaga definitely gets my vote. But the customer service at Balenciaga? It needs a complete overhaul and re-thinking as it is chasing away customers and ruining what should otherwise be a very pleasurable experience.
Unusually, not all pictures were taken by me. The picture of the Le Dix Zip is grabbed from I think Neiman Marcus because the lighting in my room was crap last night; and the one with me, my friend and Wang is taken by a photographer, not a selfie.
