Mount Street is considered one of the most prestigious and unique streets in London. A relatively little street, dominated by the most luxurious boutiques in the world and having rules such as in order to open a store in Mount Street presence somewhere else in London is needed, the experience of shopping there is exquisite. However, due to the changing face of fashion, and the- sometimes – outrageous spending that happens in these stores, store assistants – despite their commission – feel the need to act not only as the owners of the store but as they are doing you a favour to shop there.
Beautiful old English buildings, Range Rovers, Porsches and other luxurious cars with infinite shopping bags pushed in their trunks are what describe Mount Street in a first glance. Oh, and the quietness. Despite the fact, it is not more than a five minute walk from Oxford Street, Mount Street gives you the opportunity to avoid the chaos of Selfridges and enjoy spending your money on unaffordable essentials.
Walking up on Mount Street everything falls into place. Shop windows are on point, the streets are cleaner that they have ever been and doormen secure every single door of every store, making sure that all these expensive goodies are more than safe and sound in their boxes.
I decided to walk in Céline to start off my journey, as the bags and the fur coats in the shop window were something more than appealing to the eye. As I approached the store, the doorman opened the door for me and in a very soft voice greeted “Good morning, Sir”. The beautiful smell of vanilla as well as the minimalistic interior design of the store, automatically made you watch every step of yours as even the floor looked fragile. I started walking around expecting someone to offer me some help as you would expect even in an H&M store, and it happened to witness a middle aged Middle Eastern woman buying more than five Céline bags; roughly around 16,000 pounds. I sat there for around three minutes looking at the store assistant, expecting him to give me some attention as a customer, however the money that the woman was ‘offering’ him were too much to handle both her and me, resulting to not even saying hi. However, despite the fact I wasn’t interesting enough for him to even welcome me to the store, he found five seconds of his precious time to signal a security guard ‘to keep an eye on’ a young woman that was wondering around the store. I am guessing she didn’t have the ‘expensive look’ by wearing a tracksuit and a pair of trainers.
I left Céline with so many questions and a sense of shame due to my empty hands, feeling as even the doorman was judging me that I didn’t buy anything. Similarly, the store assistant of Lanvin told me to “Come back in maybe half an hour” as they were unable to serve me while there was only one customer in the store.
Luckily, Robert Francis Moir, store assistant in Goyard for the past seven years, happened to be normal and more than welcoming to answer some of my questions. “Poorly trained sales people will try to psychologically outwit customers,” explains thirty years old Robert Francis Moir. “It’s a defence mechanism, a projection of themselves and their ego. The ego takes over no matter whom you are.” As I explained him my experience minutes ago both at Céline and Lanvin he laughs saying, “When I came here for my job interview, I was petrified. I watched through the window and felt that not only I don’t belong here, but that I am not welcomed."
Being the exception in the rule of what I had witnessed so far, I decide to take a last look in Christian Louboutin’s store as the red sole empire looked more than tempting to enter. I had a look around the glancing red soles of the store and a little chitchat with Jourdan Pearce, a twenty years old store assistant. “It’s all about the experience. It is about coming to the store and for some peculiar reason show off the fact that you do have indeed the comfort to spend 700 pounds on shoes.” She also added laughing, “Therefore, sometimes this leads the store assistant in having a bad attitude as particular customers act like they are the Queen of England.”
I left Mount Street with so many questions still. Would I ever go there to shop my expensive goodies? How can it all be about the experience of shopping as even though they might be serving you perfume instead of coffee – that’s a fact in the Lanvin boutique – the store assistants act like you are nothing? The good news is, as Lorenzo Montaleni, twenty – seven years old store assistant at Christopher Kane, informed us that if the customer contacts Human Relations regarding a ‘snobbish behaviour’, most of the time they get fired. I guess next time I go to Mount Street, there will be no one I met that day except from probably two or three.