The Pampered Life of a Fashion Supershopper

A paradox of the VIC world is that no matter how much you spend, you can sometimes still be treated high-handedly. It is rare, but it happens: This is fashion, after all, and there is sometimes a feeling that just because someone can afford to buy it, it doesn’t mean they know how to wear it. “The customer driving global luxury is quite tacky in a lot of cases, and no one really admits it,” says a fashion investor.

Brands can’t completely control what clients look like or what they wear. But it’s clear they are watching and judging. Whenever she goes to a fashion event, Park wears the host label “from top to toe,” she says. “That, in my opinion, is etiquette.”

Not everybody is so astute. “Everyone is trying to upstage each other. We try to make sure they don’t go too over the top,” says the sales associate, who remembered when a VIC arrived at a runway show wearing a competitor’s logo. “Everybody talked about it. We couldn’t get her to change her mind — she didn’t give a fuck.”

The VIC sales associate told me about the time a creative director asked that a front-row client not be invited back to the runway show. “She overdid the makeup; the ponytail was too high,” says the salesperson. On top of that, “this was before Ozempic, so she was a little heavier.” It didn’t matter that the client had spent nearly a million dollars shopping at the brand; the designer felt it wasn’t worth the damage she was doing to its image at its most visible seasonal event. (The client took her business elsewhere.)

“Having money isn’t enough anymore. You have to embody what the brand wants people to see,” says Meader.

A client’s social-media behavior can also undermine their chances of landing coveted invites. “I’ll tell them, ‘If you keep posting shit like this, you’re never coming to a show,’” says the anonymous New York stylist of his newbie clients, referring to posts that are “too logo everything. Too Look, look, look at me — if it looks too manufactured.” Taking selfies with celebrities is also a big no-no, though it does happen. Clients can also draw side-eye if they take too many photos and videos during shows or parties. (And they can never share pictures taken inside the Chanel-couture atelier.)

Several sources say the Italian brands, especially the ones still controlled by their top designers, like Armani and Dolce & Gabbana, are the best at high-end-clientele–ing. “Nobody does it better than the Italians — they understand what it feels like to create a community,” says Meader. Alta Moda, Dolce’s multiday destination couture show, is among the most coveted invites in the VIC world. July’s edition, on the coast of Sardinia, opened with a performance by Christina Aguilera and closed with one by Katy Perry. Each night was an opportunity to wear an elaborate Dolce gown. One evening was exclusively dedicated to the brand’s pricey new jewelry collection. The fashion-industry investor tells me Alta Moda appeals because it is less stuck-up than some of the high-profile French events and clients can more easily mix in with celebrity and influencer guests. Usually, at a fashion show, the editors sit together in one area, the celebrities in another, and the clients in another. But at Alta Moda, everyone can mix. “You’re mingling with Bryanboy,” he says.

Like any elite pursuit with social signaling at its core, the VIC lifestyle requires not just money but tremendous time and, increasingly, expert assistance.

Kristin Dodson Smith, a Los Angeles–based stylist, says that many of her clients view their status as front-row shoppers as “a job or an extreme hobby.” She uses a client of hers who loves Valentino as an example. After each ready-to-wear show, they visit the showroom. Together, they choose what she’ll wear to the next show and what she’ll wear to parties and fund-raisers in the months ahead. Then the clothing arrives back home in Dallas or Miami and Dodson Smith oversees fittings and tailoring. “It is very task-oriented, and a lot of the women who look at it like that are very social,” she says.

And then there’s Vogue100, Wintour’s $100,000-a-year membership club, launched in 2019 as a somewhat brazen way for the magazine to sell access to her and everything she represents. Would women pay to have breakfast with Wintour, especially if they could brag about it on Instagram? The answer was a resounding “yes.” Initially, Vogue100 had more of a professional angle, targeting rich women with a start-up or jewelry line looking to build their businesses and make them the next Lauren Santo Domingo, a socialite turned entrepreneur. But coming out of the pandemic, Vogue100’s appeal has become its access to a pre-built social calendar.

Sachs became acquainted with Vogue100 three years ago through Dodson Smith at a New York luncheon for top clients hosted by Net-a-Porter. Dodson Smith encouraged her to stop by a cocktail party Vogue100 was hosting with Dolce & Gabbana in Milan a few weeks later. (Sachs was already going to be there to see Matthieu Blazy’s first runway show for Bottega Veneta.) Sachs says that after that event, accepting the offer to join Wintour’s club was a no-brainer. “The energy is super-high, and everyone’s so happy because everyone loves the art of the fashion and what they’re seeing,” she says.

Her favorite Vogue100 event was a breakfast inside the famous Vogue fashion closet at One World Trade Center in New York. Sachs wore a tweed Chanel jacket and matching dress with the brand’s signature cap-toed slingback shoes covered in pink sequins. Sarah Jessica Parker was the guest of honor and mingled with the members as they looked at her line of colorful heels before she stepped onto a makeshift stage to chat with Vogue’s then–accessories director Willow Lindley. Then they all sat down together for a breakfast of avocado toast. “It was just super-hands-on, super-intimate, and an experience I won’t forget,” says Sachs.

Many of Vogue100’s events are photographed and covered on vogue.com, adding to the appeal for members who want to boost their public profiles. (Their selfies with Wintour, however, stay on Instagram, where #Vogue100 is a popular tag in their bios.) And for those members with jewelry lines or fashion-tech start-ups, there is the possibility of editorial coverage. Still, some members have groused that it isn’t a guaranteed source for runway-show tickets — you usually need to be a VIC for the individual brand for that. Conveniently, Vogue stages its own annual runway show now, Vogue World, albeit one that is open to the public.

At the most recent edition, outside at Place Vendôme at the start of Paris Couture Week, prices went as high as nearly $27,000 for a “front-row experience” that included access to the red carpet and the after-party. Another option, for nearly $11,000, included an invitation to an “editorial breakfast” the morning of the show. Otherwise, prices for second- or third-row seats started at $2,100. Vogue100 members were well represented in the audience. Before the show began, Vogue and Eva Longoria hosted a cocktail party next door at the Hôtel d’Évreux.

For Lisa Sher-Chambers, the events in Paris marked her first time as a Vogue100 member. She exchanged numbers with many of the women she met, eager to expand her fashion network after leaving her career in investor relations last year. She shops mostly through Bergdorf Goodman and Mytheresa, which invited her to her first fashion events in New York in 2021. She’s also pursuing a career as a stylist.

This month, Sher-Chambers is taking on an ambitious runway schedule, attending shows in New York, London, and Paris. Her favorite designer at the moment might be Schiaparelli, which recently began inviting her to events with fellow devoted fans. (To Vogue World, she wore a bright-blue draped Schiaparelli top and matching skirt.) “We’re all groupies, kind of, which is fun in a great way,” she says.

Not everyone, though, wants to be a groupie forever. Park admits the travel schedule is starting to wear on her. “It’s super-exciting but, at the same time, exhausting,” she says, predicting she will limit herself to only a few events a year soon, perhaps in a couple of years. “And, you know, your closet is just jammed. You have to think about that, too.”