Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (39 page)

Hong Kong luxury retailer Lane Crawford opened a VIP suite that connects to its neighboring Four Seasons hotel in
2005
for its best clients. The three-thousand-square-foot Platinum Suite, as it is called, is spacious and modern, with commanding views of Hong Kong harbor. Among its perks are the hotel’s concierge and restaurant services as well as stylists and makeup artists to help you choose just the right outfit from Lane Crawford and get dressed for an event. The suite is often booked for private meetings and dinner parties, but Bonnie Brooks, president of the Lane Crawford Joyce Group, told me during visit, “If you are in Hong Kong for the day, and want a place to park, you can come here. And you don’t have to spend.”

Saks Fifth Avenue invites its top-spending clients to an annual dinner at a top New York restaurant—in
2006
, it was at Le Cirque—and sends them home with goodie bags stuffed with cashmere blankets, Baccarat crystal vases, or Fabergé eggs. Neiman Marcus’s customers who spend $
5
million a year on their Neiman Marcus credit card receive complimentary memberships to Exclusive Resorts, a luxury residence club, and three weeks at one of the properties. “[Big-spending customers] like to be coddled,” a Saks spokeswoman said. “Getting VIP treatment makes you feel special. It’s human nature. You love to get the prize.”

In Las Vegas, the really rich stay in hidden villas that are furnished with European antiques and include twenty-four-hour butler service, private pools, private gyms, saunas and steam rooms, and entourage rooms for their nannies, pilots, chefs, and whoever else is in tow.

They have perfume made just for them, like Louis XIV did two centuries ago. Each year, Patou receives a handful of orders for in-house nose Jean-Michel Duriez to create a made-to-measure perfume bottled in a Baccarat crystal flacon. The service costs approximately $
70
,
000
.

And if they live in or visit South America, they shop at Daslu, the world’s most luxurious store.

O
VER THE LAST FEW YEARS
,
I had heard about Daslu, the luxury fashion emporium in São Paolo, Brazil, owned and run by a savvy, ambitious woman named Eliana Tranchesi, and, to me, it sounded like everything that luxury brands professed to be.

Daslu started, like most other successful luxury ventures, quite humbly. Back in
1958
, Tranchesi’s mother, a high-society lawyer’s wife named Lucia Piva de Albuquerque, would fly from São Paolo to Rio de Janeiro to buy Brazilian high fashion. Then she’d invite her lady friends to her modest
1940
s home in the posh Vila Nova Conceição neighborhood to sell them the clothes, donating a portion of her profits to charity. At the time, Brazil was closed to imports. If South Americans wanted European luxury, they would travel to Europe or the United States to buy it. Over the years, Lucia’s living room business grew. Official store hours were
1
:
00
to
5
:
00
p.m. She hired her friends’ daughters to help with sales. Her uniformed maids scurried about, serving tea and coffee and fetching clothes from various rooms. It became known as Daslu, which translates to “In Lu’s House.”

In
1977
, Eliana, then twenty-one, began to get involved. She worked as a salesgirl and launched an in-house label, which she designed and had produced in Brazil. Lucia bought the house next door to expand the retail space. As the business grew, Lucia added another, and another, and another, and connected them, creating a warren of salons filled with shoes, clothes, handbags, and jewelry. Eventually Daslu took up the better part of a tree-lined block. “It didn’t have any windows, and there were no signs outside,” Tranchesi told me over tea at the Plaza Athenée one October afternoon in Paris in
2005
. “There was an awning with a big D on it, and that’s it.” When Lucia died in
1983
, Eliana took over.

In
1989
, Brazil’s new president, Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello—the first democratically elected leader in twenty-six years—implemented an economic plan to battle the country’s rampant inflation that included freezing assets and bank accounts, and easing restrictions on imports. For Tranchesi, it was an answer to her prayers. “I said, ‘We are going to have Chanel, Gucci!’” she remembered. “And my friends said, ‘Are you crazy? No one has any money.’” Tranchesi didn’t care. “I knew we had clients with taste,” she told me, “that there would be a market.” She jumped on a plane and flew to Europe to meet with fashion houses. “The first collection we bought was Claude Montana,” she remembered. It was followed by Valentino and Moschino. In the mid–
1990
s, a Chanel bigwig traveled to São Paolo and stopped by Daslu to see what the all the hubbub was about. He was bowled over.

“We have to have a Chanel store in here,” he told Tranchesi when they met in her little office upstairs. “But where?”

Tranchesi looked around.

“Here,” she said.

“There were thirteen other important retailers in São Paolo at the time with big display windows on the street,” Tranchesi told me, “and he chose Daslu, inside, on the third floor, in the middle of the men’s department! He came to the opening and at the end of the day he was on his knees putting shoes on clients’ feet. We sold
70
percent of the collection in the first day. I asked friends to leave behind some of what they had purchased so I could show it the second day.”

Though Chanel was a roaring success, Tranchesi still had trouble getting brands to sell to her. “They didn’t see Brazil as a good market,” she said. “But then they’d come here and were overwhelmed.” Eventually, she snagged Gucci, Prada, Zegna, and Dolce & Gabbana, which all set up in-store boutiques. To make room for them, Tranchesi had to keep buying and renting neighboring houses. By
2002
, she had twenty-three houses, for a total of
135
,
000
square feet, and seventy thousand clients. Their armored limos with bulletproof glass clogged the street. Neighbors started to complain. When Tranchesi needed to expand even more, the zoning commission said no, so she decided it was time to move. In June
2005
, she closed the old, rambling Daslu and inaugurated the new Daslu, a
180
,
000
-square-foot Florentine-villa-like fashion emporium in Vila Olímpia, a bustling business district about a mile from the original location. In the first four months, she added fifteen thousand new clients.

In April
2006
, I traveled to São Paolo, the world’s fifth largest city, with eighteen million people, specifically to visit the new Daslu. Even with all I knew about the store, I was still knocked out.

You enter by a long private driveway and pass through two security gates. The economic disparity in Brazil is radical and divisive: the poorest
40
percent of the country’s
188
million possess only
8
percent of its wealth, many living in sprawling urban shantytowns known as
favelas.
The richest—the country’s ruling class—live like pre-revolution aristocrats with fortified homes where they entertain lavishly, with armored limos and bodyguards. “We have a lot of problems with security here,” Mônica Mendes, Daslu’s international director of marketing, explained to me. “The really rich don’t go out and walk in the streets.” Most cars have darkened windows not to block sunlight but for security, and you never, ever roll your window down. Locals will drive through red lights rather than stop and take the risk of being carjacked. Mendes was so nervous sitting at one red light where there were a few squeegee guys that when it turned green and we drove on unharmed, she crossed herself and said a prayer of thanks. “São Paolo is one of the most important markets for bulletproofing,” she said. “Everybody has it.”

Once you arrive at the store’s entrance, a valet takes your car and you are whisked inside the vanilla marble hall to the concierge desk, where a hostess will sign you in. If you are a regular, you have probably already alerted your regular salesgirl that you are coming, and the hostess will ring to tell her you’ve arrived. If not, you will be assigned a salesgirl for your visit. The salesgirls are known as Dasluzettes and are the daughters of São Paolo’s best families. They are
très soigné
—tall and thin, with smooth butternut skin and long glistening hair—and they move in the city’s rarefied social circles, attending smart dinner parties and extravagant galas nightly. “The salesgirls live the life that the customers live,” Tranchesi explained. “So they understand.”

If you’re a regular customer, chances are your Dasluzette has already pulled several pieces that you will probably love and put them aside in a private salon for you to try on. New clothes arrive often, which is why Daslu’s best customers tend to come to the store four times a week. “Women in Brazil are completely crazy about fashion,” Mendes told me during my visit. “Clients buy American
Vogue,
tear out the pages, give them to the salesgirl and say, ‘When that arrives, I want it.’ When the Fendi Baguette first came out, we sold them all in presale before we received them.”

If you are a new customer, like I was, your Dasluzette will give you a tour, collecting items that interest you as you move from room to room. Like the old Daslu, the store layout is like a house with interconnecting salons. The decor is in soft off-white tones with thick champagne-hued carpeting—it’s as if you’ve plunged into a vat of
crème anglaise
—and white orchids everywhere. On the ground floor are the designer boutiques, including all the regular suspects: Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Valentino, Jimmy Choo, Sergio Rossi, Chloé, Pucci, Valentino, Manolo Blahnik. “Every young Brazilian woman knows Manolo Blahnik,” Tranchesi said with a laugh. “And Valentino sells well because the husbands love their wives in Valentino dresses.” For most of the brands, Daslu owns the franchise and chooses the clothes. But the brands usually handle the decor themselves, to maintain continuity; Peter Marino designed the Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana boutiques. Vuitton, Burberry, Armani, and Ferragamo lease their space from Daslu. The Vuitton store, at four thousand square feet, is the largest in Latin America.

On the second floor you’ll find fine jewelry, perfume, lingerie, swimwear, vintage wear, a few more luxury brands, a champagne bar, the Leopolldina restaurant, and Daslu private label for women, known as Daslu Collection. No men are allowed in the Daslu women’s department, and there are security guards posted at the entrances to make sure. There are no dressing rooms on the women’s floor. Instead, customers strip down to their lacy underwear and try on the clothes right there on the sales floor. “My mother only received friends, so there was no problem changing in front of one another,” Tranchesi explained. “I did the same: friends receiving friends, so no need for changing rooms. It’s natural for Brazilians. You aren’t ashamed if men aren’t around.”

The Daslu collection has become a pillar of the store. It accounts for
60
percent of sales there and is now carried by several international retailers including Bergdorf Goodman, Saks-Jandel in Washington, Tracey Ross in L.A., and Harrods and Browns in London. Tranchesi still designs the collection and has it made in Brazil, mostly in locally produced materials. The clothes are casual chic: swishy jersey dresses, sexy stretch jeans, towering strappy sandals decorated with big faux jewels, filmy gowns flecked with crystals. As you settle into one of the cozy corners with comfy sofas to try them on, the maids, known as the “uniform girls” because of their black dresses with white aprons and stockings, will serve you refreshments. “When Daslu was in my mother’s house, the maids, who wore the same uniform, helped and served,” Tranchesi explained. “They started by giving coffee or water. Then they started to put the clothes back.” Now there is an army of three hundred.

The ambiance at Daslu is clubby and delightfully upbeat. Customers come from Rio and Salvador, Argentina and Peru. Everyone knows everyone—there are plenty of air kisses. They shop for a few hours, meet up for high tea in the Leopolldina restaurant or for a drink in the champagne bar, catch up on gossip, then shop some more. Six times a year, Daslu hosts a festive fashion show/party for ten thousand of its best customers. “The women dance, shop, and have a great time,” Mendes says. On Tuesday evening, Daslu stays open until ten, and chic Paulistas meet there for dinner and shopping. The wealthy and famous like Daslu, she explained, “because you have a lot of privacy, you have everything you need, and everyone is treated like a VIP.” Celebrities particularly like the safety of the Daslu compound. “Nothing happens to them here,” Mendes said. “No one notices or bothers them. [Formula One champion] Michael Schumacher came here last year and nobody said anything. [Brazilian soccer star] Ronaldo is one of the most important clients we have at Daslu and nothing happens. No autographs. No photos. Nothing.” A few years ago, Tranchesi had a study done of shopping habits at Daslu. “Normally, in a Brazilian shopping mall,
20
percent buy,” she told me. “At Daslu,
75
percent of people who walk inside buy something.”

On the third floor is the men’s department. There’s a Johnnie Walker whiskey bar, a bookstore with a fireplace and sofas, and even a La Perla lingerie boutique, “so they can buy for their wives and girlfriends,” Mendes says. There’s a men’s Daslu ready-to-wear line; departments dedicated to electronics, athletic wear, and gym equipment; a travel agency; a luxury real estate agency; Mitsubishi, Volvo, and Maserti dealerships; a Ferretti yacht broker; a Daslu helicopter dealer (one hangs on display in the atrium); a tobacconist; a music department; a Japanese restaurant called Kosushi that is considered the best in São Paolo; and a wine department with a selection of vintages to rival the best caves in Paris.

On the fourth floor, you find the children’s clothing and toy department, with a playroom and a kid’s-height bar with bowls of gumdrops and plates of chocolate chip cookies, a bank, a pharmacy where you can fill your prescriptions, a hairdresser where each client has a private room, and a spa: “Brazilian women are crazy about the body and skin care—it’s unbelievable,” Mendes said. “They have facial massages regularly.” Daslu of course has the best facialist in town. “It takes four or five months to get an appointment.” She adds. In addition, there is Casa Daslu, with table-, glass-, and silverware as well as refrigerators, barbeques, and a Viking showroom; a stationer to do your engraved notepaper and invitations; a chocolate shop run by Tranchesi’s sister, where all the chocolates are made by hand; and a bakery called Pati Piva that does extravagant tiered wedding cakes. On the ground level, there is a consecrated wedding chapel, and on the fifth floor is a series of immense terrace-like reception rooms and a ballroom that can seat thirteen hundred, all with a view of the city. “I think Daslu is the only place in Brazil where you can do everything for your wedding, including holding the ceremony and the reception, booking the honeymoon, and buying the house,” Mendes said.