Fastwong
1729
If you can' t beat them, join them? Maybe Stern needs a crack team to do a PP subsidiary just for boutiques in the US? :)
Jul 16, 2023,22:26 PM
I don't think WOS even staffs their PP section, I imagine they just show up for appointments. Wempe is hit or miss. Time Machine was okay when my aunt used to work in the PP section and Nicholas Cage still had $ to blow
Worst experience so far has been the new Tiffany boutique where it is actually staffed and they still manage to ignore me EVERYTIME
despite literally just standing there feet from me doing a whole lot of nothing. They have a ton of watches on display, maybe more than all the other AD's in NYC combined, but it is more like a gate, a distraction from keeping the unwashed masses from passing beyond the showcases to the reception area and private rooms beyond. Actually, that's most of the new store. It's like Bruce Lee's, Game of Death, the floors actually shrink with each level as the private / vip facilities increase as you go up until you reach the roped off stairs leading to the top few floors the public will never see. I've been there three times and each time I've been ignored completely, they didn't even bother to ask me to leave when I started snooping around. It has zero value for the general public, might as well not exist. I talked to a guy in the temp store, he's vanished, wonder if they fired him for even contemplating getting me a watch.
I wonder if this is really the model going forward. Maybe there's enough top .01% to carry all of Patek's annual production. All the luxury brands are trying to focus on their top 2-5% of customer as the richcession kills a lot of the volume of luxury buyers. Why even pretend. In this model though, I think you comparison to a master som is even more on point. If they do double down on their best customers, all the more need for serious expertise above and beyond what's available online. Archives access, historical context, huge expertise in market with knowledge so vast even the most enthusiastic clients can still feel small next to the expanse of the brand and keep them begging for whatever they put out next year :P