I personally approve every celebrity that wants to borrow - and not buy - our pieces. I am not easily seduced by the power of celebrity and I don't believe that this influences our sales, so why not only send out pieces to the people I like and respect? We can't influence who buys the designs but we can control who borrows them.
The other day our press office emailed me asking if it was ok to borrow pieces for a shoot with Julianne Moore. Whoo-hoo - hell yes! She is a great actress, smart and amazingly beautiful, a perfect brand ambassador! The shoot is for the New York Times and it is about Julianne's favourite places in London - and the Lara Bohinc store is her favourite shop! Really? How come I have never seen a photo of her with our pieces? Excited I ask the girls in the press office to do some research and to find photos of her wearing our products. I have never seen them myself but you never know, I don't read celebrity gossip papers so I am not really an authority on that. But nothing, no photo as such....
They have requested to borrow only one item - the Lunar eclipse bag in python, our classic design that has been selling for years now and it costs nearly £2,000.
A week later when the return is due, we become suspicious: the stylist's number is not working and when we call the New York Times they confirm our fears: no, there is no photo shoot with Julianne Moore and they don't know that stylist either. Julianne's assistant confirms that she is neither working with the aformentioned stylist nor shooting for the New York Times....
Arghhhh - fraud, it happened again! We have been tricked in a quite clever way- they knew to choose a celebrity that I would approve of and banked on us not checking them up.
Serves me right- and I thought I wouldn't be fooled by some celebrity carrot!
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