Inside a Department Store's Secret Shopping Service (from WSJ)

• ON STYLE
• AUGUST 11, 2011

• By CHRISTINA BINKLEY
  

Mimi Ritzen Crawford for The Wall Street Journal

 

Personal shopper Fay Ricotta in her office at Saks with clothes pulled for a client.

The New York flagship of Saks Fifth Avenue doesn't carry Lanvin. But Fay Ricotta does.

In a closet-sized office within the section known as the Fifth Avenue Club, Ms. Ricotta, a personal shopper, runs what amounts to an exclusive boutique with some of fashion's most sought-after labels, from Haider Ackerman to Azzedine Alaïa. Her clients, many of them women with image-conscious jobs, seek clothing that is chosen for them, often without being filtered through Saks's merchandisers.

Ms. Ricotta's services are about as elite as personal shopping gets. Many department stores employ personal shoppers—Saks has 18 in womenswear—to help clients select, fit and style their clothes. But few personal shoppers have their own budgets to shop for clients. 

Ms. Ricotta says she interviews prospective clients, who often come by referral. She notes that her clients need to share her aesthetic, which revolves around simple, chic pieces like a crisp white blouse or a figure-flattering dress. "I think a woman should be dressed like a lady," she said recently, wearing a leopard-print wool-jersey "Audrey" dress by Samantha Sung, a Los Angeles-based designer.

Mimi Ritzen Crawford for The Wall Street Journal

Ms. Ricotta goes to fashion shows to shop for her clients and provides access to clothing that isn't available on Saks floors.

Her 27 clients tend to be trim and big-spending. She estimates 90% of them wear a size 4. As for the rest, there are "two sixes, one 10, one 12." Ms. Ricotta, who works on commission only, says she doesn't turn away people for not spending enough. As with other Saks personal shoppers, there's no charge for her service. But her average client spends of $150,000 to $200,000 per year with her, she estimates, though she's had clients spend as little as $1,000. 

Ms. Ricotta, who is 49 years old, has built a network of access to designer labels, after years of working at fashion brands such as Céline and Calvin Klein and at stores such as Jeffrey and Bergdorf Goodman. She was lured away from Bergdorf in 2005, bringing a string of clients along with her. She says she was tapped by Ron Frasch, Saks's vice chairman, who was formerly Bergdorf's chairman.

Employing Ms. Ricotta gives Saks access, too—not just to her clients but to exclusive clothes that the store doesn't carry on its floors. High-fashion clothing brands limit their purveyors to keep up the luxury quotient of their labels. Lanvin is available at Bergdorf Goodman in New York, and won't sell to Saks there. (The only Saks to carry Lanvin is in Chicago).

When Nancy Novogrod, editor in chief of Travel + Leisure magazine, found one of her most versatile pieces of clothing—a black cashmere Azzedine Alaïa sweater—"Saks didn't have them. Fay had them."

"We don't carry Thom Browne" at Saks, Ms. Ricotta says of the menswear designer's new women's label. "But I'm going to carry it."

Mimi Ritzen Crawford for The WSJ

Ms. Ricotta tries to make sure her clients don't get the same looks that other clients are buying. 

Designer labels respond to her sales power as well. Brant Cryder, president of Yves Saint Laurent North America, says, "You need to jump on whatever Fay may need." He adds that he listens when she says that a fabric is too stiff or a client needs a coat in a different color.

Gucci last season sent over two runway samples for one of her clients. Once, when an investment banker client was set on a Chanel suit but found the skirt too short, Ms. Ricotta dialed up Chanel's New York offices. She requested extra fabric and trim so that she could have Saks's seamstresses add four inches to the length. Chanel obliged.

Ms. Ricotta travels to Paris fashion week twice a year. This fall, she expects to attend 20 shows there and to place orders directly with brands including Stella McCartney, Céline, Dries Van Noten, Nina Ricci and Chloé. She is keenly aware she must sell what she buys. "If I don't sell that $500,000 worth of clothes, I have to face Mr. Frasch," she says. "And he makes me nervous."

"Good," responds Mr. Frasch. "A good merchant is paranoid and insecure." But he adds that he often refers influential new clients to Ms. Ricotta and that she is one of a very few Saks personal shoppers entrusted with a clothing-buying budget. He declines to divulge its size, but notes, "It's a meaningful amount of money. And if she needs more because she needs something for a client, we give it to her."

Ms. Ricotta offers clients more than access to labels. After pulling clothes for clients, she often tries them on herself to assemble a whole look. Clients try on the clothes in front of mirrors in her office with her by their side. 

When one client was delivered a $7,000 sequined gown with the security tag still attached just hours before an event, Ms. Ricotta leapt up from the table at her acupuncture appointment, raced to the store to get the right tool, and met the client's limo at the curb to remove the tag.

She works hard to make sure her clients don't get the same looks that other clients are buying. She has been careful since two clients who are editors at Condé Nast wound up at a meeting in the same Giambattista Valli jacket. "It's actually my biggest fear. I'd rather lose the sale and not sell it to anyone," she says.

CNN correspondent Alina Cho, who reports on topics including fashion, displays Ms. Ricotta's work in some of the clothes she wears on and off camera. She says, "I've got her on speed dial."

Close relationships can involve honesty and abuse, and Ms. Ricotta, who hasn't lost the accent of the Bronx, where she was raised, provides both. She once pointed to a shiny dress that one first-time client wore and announced, "You know that tech look has been out for about five years."

"She's brutally honest," says Ms. Cho, citing a time when Ms. Ricotta told her a dress made her look like "a little old lady." She adds, "There is no editor in her brain."

Ms. Ricotta has rules: She doesn't dress clients in Oscar de la Renta. "Everybody's wearing Oscar," she says. Once a proponent of Christian Louboutin, she has moved on to the next new thing: Brian Atwood's sexy heels. On the forefront of labels that aren't yet household names, she currently favors Haider Ackerman, Erdem and Sophie Theallet.

Ms. Novogrod calls Ms. Ricotta the "Delphic oracle of fashion." "If I took you on a tour of my closet, you'd see the full extent of what knowing Fay has done for me," she says, "not to mention how it's affected the inheritance my children will receive."

—Contact Christina.Binkley@wsj.com or twitter.com/BinkleyOnStyle.

Little things in my apartment

So it finally happened! We moved!! 

It took a really long time for us to find a place that we love and can afford which proved to be almost an impossible task. But somehow we did it!!!

Although I know that this is a Kloset Space and not an interior designer web-site I'm so excited about our apartment that I would like to share some affordable items we have here.

I would like to begin with the hallway, mind it though that ours is a NYC apartment and size is usually nothing to be proud of and one room might turn into another one in a blink of an eye.

These picture frames are from IKEA. My girlfriend and I rented a car one day to make a trip to Brooklyn. There is also a free ferry from downtown that will take you directly to the mall in case you don't want to spend money on a car. These frames were only $5 each so I got three of them. We took some pictures ourselves to make it more personal, printed them in black and white and now have a little picture gallery in the hallway. I also would like to mention that my boyfriend took a task of painting ALL the walls in our apartment which I consider very courageous and worthy of a medal. Paint really made a huge difference so I would always recommend painting at least one or two walls in the apartment if you are planning to stay there for at least a year or two.

Another item that was bought at IKEA is this dresser. It's very spacious and was only $179. A nice Tiffany-style lamp and a couple of pictures will be a great addition to it. Hopefully we'll have furniture from  more respectable establishments than IKEA (some day) but for now it's perfect since we'll most likely be moving at least a couple more times and usually furniture gets damaged in the process.

Next to the dresser we have this hamper. I wanted to have it so badly for years and for some reason never got it. It's a perfect storage space for dirty laundry and it can be in the middle of the room and actually add some character to it (as long as there is nothing too smelly inside). There are different kinds sold in Bed Bath and Beyond for $40-$50.

This painting was painted by my boyfriend's grandma and was given to us by his family (I'm lucky to have a boyfriend from such an artistic family). This was a perfect picture for us since we wanted to have something special there and had a hard time finding a good paining at a reasonable price. Paintings or pictures really make a difference and a great one would make a bedroom special and different from any other. I would recommend having an abstract painting or a black and white picture in the bedroom. If it was up to me though I would have a huge portrait of Marylin Monroe there :) 

Since we have a limited space in the apartment, all my vases and a couple of photographs went on top of kitchen cabinets. I saw it done this way in some magazine and decided to try it. Now I recommend everyone to do the same. It gives kitchen a little touch and frees up the space on the ground level.

We were so lucky to have three huge windows in the living room with 2 balconies/fire escapes. So we planted some flowers there right away as well as dill, basil and tomatoes. For some reason seeing these plants growing and blooming makes us happy and definitely provides a little more color to our apartment (not mentioning a nutritional value!).

Surely, we couldn't go without a huge tropical plant! This one is from Home Depot and it was so inexpensive that we couldn't resist. If you ever go shopping for plants please check Home Depot first because prices there are at least two times less than at any other store. Plus they have a return policy on plants as well! So if you don't like something about your plant down the road just bring it back and get a refund. In addition, when you buy plants from them they replant it right at the store and also deliver (for a small fee). This plant cost about $100 with the pot and delivery compared to $150 just for the plant at a regular flower shop.

The lamp. We found this lamp in Bed Bath and Beyond, it was sold in a set of two for $40. A bargain! Besides I like its library look and it goes perfectly with a brick wall.

One of my favorites is a leaning book shelf from Crate and Barell. We all know how expensive that store is but I have to admit that it's not without a reason. The quality of their goods is a top notch and it looks like they have the best designers. However we went to craigslist for this shelf and got it for a mere $50! It's so elegant and fits a good amount on stuff on it, among them books and just some decorative items like a sand watch. I simply love this thing, although there is no real use of it but it just looks great. Little things like that add charm to the apartment and I always look for them in department stores. This one I found at Home Goods (one of my favorite home stuff store) for $20. 

You can also see a window curtain hook on the same picture, this also is just a little touch to have our windows look organized but at the same time add a little detail to the window design. A set of two hooks was about $4 at Bed Bath, simply a bargain! Another thing to mention about this store is that you should always always have 20% coupons when you go there. Makes shopping so much more fun and less guilt!

I'm still working on decorating our apartment, always looking for little things to add here and there like another picture on the wall or shelves or pillows. And surely, can't wait for the Christmas time when we can decorate it for the magical time of the year.

Some interesting facts

The Muddy Roots of Fine Linen

From Farm to Fashion, the Creation of a Fabric Fit 

for a $6,000 Dress

By CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO

Le Neubourg, France

Linen has become a high-end staple on the designer-clothing racks. This year has seen Stella McCartney's blue silk/linen blazer for $2,145, a denim-like cotton/linen Valentino dress for $2,290, and a nouveau trench coat from Derek Lam for $1,450. Lanvin is selling brides a wedding gown made of cotton and linen for just under $6,000.

From Farm to Fashion

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Emmanuel Fradin for The Wall Street Journal

1: Two-thirds of the world's linen originates in a belt of land stretching from northern France to the Netherlands. Farmers here are skilled at turning flax into fabric. In the fields of Normandy last month, flax was ready for harvest, after its blue flowers gave way to dried pods that rattled in the wind. Unlike cotton, which comes from the boll, or seed pod, of a cotton plant, linen is found in the stem.

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Emmanuel Fradin for The Wall Street Journal

2: Farmers let the rows of cut flax lie in the field, propagating a fungus that helps linen fibers in the stems separate from their husk.

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Emmanuel Fradin for The Wall Street Journal

3: Next, the linen fiber is separated from the plant. At a facility in Le Neubourg, France, a worker inspects the quality of linen fibers.

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Emmanuel Fradin for The Wall Street Journal

4: Linen emerges from combing machines, which prepare it for spinning, as one long stream of brushed fibers.

Lanvin

5: This Lanvin gown in a linen blend sells for just under $6,000 at net-a-porter.com.

Yet these thousand-dollar linens have humble roots. Two-thirds of the world's linen originates in a narrow belt of farmland that stretches from northern France to the Netherlands. Mixed in among wheat, sugar-beet and corn crops are 200,000 acres of flax fields. "It's the muddy part of fashion," says Bertrand Coulier, head of Le Neubourg farmers' cooperative in Normandy, which begins the process of turning flax into fabric.

The savoir-faire in the region has helped elevate linen to a high-fashion fabric. Linen, the garb Egyptian mummies wore to their tombs, has long been synonymous with wrinkly weekend wear. Now, a more modern linen—woven into a jersey, blended with Spandex, or vintage-looking in its raw state—has become an environmentally friendly alternative to the old standards of cotton and wool. The latest linen blends are less wrinkly, less transparent and more versatile.

"Linen is like a rare wool," says Eric Vanfleteren, who runs La Linière Saint-Martin, comparing the niche fabric to alpaca or cashmere. La Linière Saint-Martin, also in Normandy, combs and grooms linen fibers to prepare them for weaving. (He also supplies short linen fibers that are used in U.S. dollar bills.) Céline's influential designer, Phoebe Philo, has used linen in several collections since taking over the label three years ago. Linen made it into the fall haute couture runway show of French designer Maxime Simoens last month.

Fashion brands are telling consumers more about the origins of their clothes. Linen, because it comes from such a limited region, is able to ride this movement. It is often marketed in the U.S. as "Belgian linen." Earlier this year, Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo sold a linen line in that was identified as grown in France. Serge Bensimon, founder of the French casual-wear brand Bensimon famous for its linen canvas sneakers, recently visited the northern French linen fields. Linen makers also tout the facts that all parts of the flax plant are used, including the edible seeds, and that linen doesn't require chemicals in its basic production.

Recent volatility in cotton prices has closed a historical gap with linen prices. Cotton prices more than doubled in the past year, hitting a high of $2.30 a pound in March, according to the National Cotton Council of America, though last month they returned to last year's level of around $1 per pound. Le Neubourg, one of France's biggest linen cooperatives, sold linen at $1.27 a pound on average last year.

Unlike cotton, linen isn't traded on a commodities market. Its price depends merely on the supply from a more or less bountiful harvest and the demand from linen spinners. Last year, at the Normandy cooperative, one hectare's worth of linen—enough to make 4,000 shirts—sold for 2,500 euros (about $3,550). Yet to produce one pound of linen requires twice the land and twice the manpower cost of cotton.

"It takes up 15% of my fields and 50% of my worries," says farmer Pascal Prevost. "We're like wine makers who put their souls in the bottle."

Flax is a high-maintenance fiber—one reason its production is so limited around the world. Each summer, about three months after sowing, the slender stems grow waist-high and a blue flower blooms on each plant. When the plants dry out and turn golden in the sun, the flax is ready for harvest. There's a sound that also tells farmers when flax is ripe for picking: The linseeds inside each dried pod make a hushed rattle when the wind whips up. Large machines pluck the plants from the soil, unearthing even the roots, which contain linen fibers.

"The quality of the linen starts in the fields," says Jean-Baptiste Voisin, a farmer and president of the Le Neubourg cooperative.

The dried flax is rolled into large bundles and delivered to the cooperative in Le Neubourg. The cooperative belongs to the 350 farmers who deliver their flax for scutching, when machines extract the linen fibers. The flax goes into one end of the long machine looking like hay and emerges as long strings of raw linen.

A Derek Lam trench coat in a denim that is 68% linen.

Mr. Voisin grabs a handful of linen fibers and squeezes it. "When it wrinkles, it's because it's rich in oil, a sign of good quality," he says, opening his fist to show the creases. At the end of the scutching line, the cooperative uses five criteria to measure quality: oiliness, color, strength, fineness and homogeneity. The longest fibers can measure three feet.
The maturing of harvested flax is what makes the process so specific to northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Farmers let the rows of plucked flax lie in the sun and rain for several weeks. The alternation of sun and rain in this European coastal climate propagates a fungus that grows on the flax stems, rotting them to help separate the linen fibers from their husk. In warmer countries such as Egypt, this step—called retting—can be done in water, but it results in polluted water.

Since China began building linen-weaving companies 20 years ago, the bulk of linen fibers have headed east to be turned into various textiles. The Le Neubourg cooperative has teamed up with two other nearby cooperatives to sell fibers to weaving companies, giving them greater bargaining power. Together, the three cooperatives account for 30% of the world production of linen fibers. Chinese companies buy 80% of their supply.

Yet the cooperative keeps the finest tresses for European weavers, Mr. Voisin says. The European spinners—Safilin and Linificio, based in France and Italy, respectively—sell much of their fabrics to high-end fashion.

"This will go into a postal bag," Mr. Voisin says, handling two different bunches of linen strands, "and this will go to Cerruti," the high-end Italian weaver.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474334166079572.html?KEYWORDS=the+muddy+roots+of+fine+linen