Tongue in Chic by Kirstie Clements

Author:Kirstie Clements [Clements, Kirstie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522864823
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Then there was the incident we came to refer to as Puccigate. One day the fashion assistant came to me, concerned that the PR for Pucci in Milan had emailed requesting that we send their wedding dress back. It was an archival piece that had been worn by a supermodel for her wedding the year before, and was one of the house’s most recognisable pieces. The problem was that the fashion office had never called the dress in—we weren’t shooting any bridal stories. A subsequent check of the paperwork revealed that a young woman by the name of Hilary, who worked in the marketing department at Chic, had requested the dress. She had apparently emailed the PR in Milan claiming to be from the editorial team and asking for the dress to be couriered to us for a ‘retrospective’ editorial, and the PR had duly sent the dress via international courier. And, who would have thought, it turned out Hilary was getting married very soon.

Hilary was then on annual leave, so Alicia, who loved an intrigue, called her. Did she by any chance have this dress, the cost of which was probably in the vicinity of $15 000 and the loss of which would spoil our relationship with Pucci forever? Hilary at first claimed she had no idea what Alicia was alluding to.

‘So, if I went to your house, the dress wouldn’t be in your cupboard?’ Alicia asked. Hilary said that no, it wouldn’t. We stalled the Pucci PR for a day or so while we investigated.

Alicia called Hilary again. This time, Hilary admitted that she had called the dress in for a shoot but said that it had been sent back. We knew the shoot was non-existent and were planning to get to that lie later, but in the meantime we wanted to know if we could have the tracking number of the delivery. Ah, no. It turned out that, after the initial phone call from Alicia, Hilary had run to the post office, shoved the exquisite handmade lace gown into a padded envelope and posted it.

Our fashion office manager, Helen, had a mild heart attack on hearing this, and the package ended up stuck in customs in London. All this meant four weeks of panicky excuses, so as not to lose face with Pucci. I was furious, but when I mentioned the incident to Hilary’s manager, the response was: ‘Is it that big a deal?’

They simply had no idea how seriously we took our relationships with clients. Hilary eventually resigned, although probably out of embarrassment rather than shame, and went to work for an online start-up, god help them.

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