This is not as easy as it sounds. Expensive clothes are often chained to their racks like packhorses at a dude ranch. This is not to discourage stealing, which would be all too apparent given the fact that these “clothes” are often elaborate affairs that can’t easily be hidden, in, say, a regular shopping bag. No. The clothes are chained as a stern reminder that you’re not really supposed to handle them. You will need the assistance of a wrangler before you can even get close to getting them into the dressing room.
If you’re not already a tich intimidated, you might be when you see the dressing room itself. Chances are it’s more expensively furnished than your apartment. It may have a couch or two and definitely a few throw pillows. You can see how someone really rich might be encouraged to have an afternoon party there.
And this brings us to the best part of shopping in Madison World: You can drink. Most stores serve champagne. And unlike the exorbitant prices that restaurants charge, the champagne in Madison World is free.
You’ll want some of that champagne for Dutch courage. In addition to the couches, the dressing room likely has a platform centered in front of a large, three-sided mirror. You may be able to survive your own gaze, but can you survive the gaze of the entire sales staff? Because while you are changing, you will inevitably get that knock on the door. “How are you doing?”
What the wrangler really means is: How are the clothes doing?
The ordeal is far from over, however. If you do “find something” you want to take home, you will have to purchase it. Everywhere else in the world this is done with a touch of a button. Not in Madison World.
For some strange reason, it will take at least fifteen minutes to ring up your purchase and run your credit card. During this time, exhausted, you may collapse on one of the many sectionans—or fainting couches—located near the opening in the wall where the salespeople disappear to make this mysterious, time-consuming transaction.
And then you have to pay the bill. It’s always more than you feared. Walking into a store in Madison World is like walking into a casino. You have no idea how much money you might lose.
But behind the glittering cases of jewels and fine leathers and backgammon sets with mother-of-pearl inlay was an ugly secret: the stores in Madison World were going broke.
It was a refrain I’d overhear again and again, made by everyone from the salespeople taking a break out on the street to the bartender at Bar Italia.
Still, maybe the news wasn’t all bad. If the stores were going broke, then certainly the stores should be having sales. Wasn’t that the first rule of business? If something isn’t selling, maybe it’s too expensive.
I decided to make my first stop Ralph Lauren. There was usually some kind of good sale at Ralph. A year ago, I’d bought the one nice thing I now owned—a leather biker jacket—at 80 percent off. I wore it everywhere, and I happened to be wearing it when I walked in.
It may have been a twenty-four-hour news cycle of disaster out in the real world, but entering the store was like stepping into another time when nothing particularly bad was happening. The air smelled slightly of candy. Some kind of groovy music was playing—a boppy tune familiar enough to make me feel younger and like I had my whole future ahead of me. It was rather like being inside an egg.
The feeling didn’t last long.
I was immediately surrounded by a flotilla of salespeople who recognized the leather jacket.
“I remember that jacket from last season. I always loved it.”
“Have you seen this season’s version?”
“Um, no. But how many does one woman need?” I said, as politesse forced me to examine the studded leather jacket that had been procured from the racks and was now being held out like a newly born child. I caught a glimpse of the price tag. Five thousand dollars. No wonder they were after me. How were they to know that there was no way I could afford a five-thousand-dollar jacket and that the one I had on had been 80 percent off?
I looked toward the entrance, hoping to make an escape, but the salespeople were blocking my way. What everyone said about the stores going broke must be true. Which meant the salespeople must be desperate.
The question was how desperate? And what would they do to me when they discovered I was a “fake” shopper? I imagined a scene like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I tried to slip upstairs, but two salespeople followed me.
“Is there something you’d like to see?”
My eye was immediately drawn to the shiniest, most glittery piece in the room—an enormous ball gown constructed of tulle. I hurried toward it, hoping I might hide behind the vast skirts.
No dice.
“Can I help you?” the saleswoman asked.
“Just wondering about the price,” I murmured.
“What would you like to know?”
“How much is it?”
The salesperson went to the dress and turned over the tag.
I held my breath while I did a few quick calculations. Twenty years ago, that dress would have been thirty-five hundred dollars. Allowing for “inflation” it would be about five thousand today. But then there’s the rich tax.