Dressing Room Diva: Just Ask Vevie, She’s ‘Always Right’
To watch Vevie Reynolds work is to watch a pro in action. On long Donna Karan hose-clad legs, she is shuttling among three dressing rooms, assisting a mother-to-be in need of chic maternity clothes, a CEO’s wife in for a refitting of an opalescent red designer gown, and a woman buying clothes for a trip to Spain.
While hustling at a breakneck pace, there is not a bead of sweat on her brow or a hair out of place. Reynolds (“Vevie†is short for Genevieve) is having the time of her life at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills.
Her domain is the second floor couture salon, home to Valentino, Lagerfeld and Galanos, where if you have to ask, there’s no way you can afford it. Most of her clients are in the economic ionosphere. They look, they like, they buy.
Reynolds, 62, is one of a disappearing breed of saleswomen, the kind who know their customers by name, who go from department to department to coordinate an outfit and who keep detailed lists of statistics on regular clients, including sizes, color preferences and favorite designers.
Neiman’s has 16 couture saleswomen, and some other department stores and boutiques offer similar service. But the personal touch is becoming more and more rare in an era when it’s tough even to find a sales person, much less one who remembers your name.
What Reynolds keeps stored in her head about her customers is much more: trips taken, trips upcoming, children’s ages, schools and activities; if single, dating status; if married, how many times.
“Now, this woman is amazing , and she’s so nice,†Reynolds says, heading for her dressing room where the customer is waiting. “She’s gone back to law school, she’s divorced, she used to be a television producer and she has a daughter who’s just gorgeous. And she’s been going out with this guy who asked her to marry him. . . . We’ll have to find out what happened.â€
Saleswoman and shopper greet each other like old friends, and Reynolds asks about law school and the latest beau. Laura (not her real name) explains she’s going to Florida, where she’ll need some evening suits and dinner dresses.
They sweep through the department, Reynolds pulling clothes off the racks and bringing them back for Laura to try on.
“No, that’s not you,†Reynolds says perfunctorily, and Laura nods her head, doffs the dress and tries another.
“If something doesn’t look good,†Laura says when Reynolds leaves the room, “she’ll just say, ‘No, that’s not for you,’ and she’s always right.â€
The next customer is in for a refitting of a skirt that had to be let out. As she waits for the tailor to arrive, she says, “Vevie is just wonderful. I hate to shop. So I call her and tell her what I need and she pulls it for me, and she really knows my tastes. There are days when I come in, and if Vevie isn’t here, I’ll just leave.â€
While the tailor pins the skirt, she and Reynolds catch up on vacation and family news. Then Reynolds rings up another customer for several thousand dollars worth of clothes, pushing her black-framed glasses back as she checks and rechecks the price tags.
After that she bags the clothes and hauls them down to the shipping room to have them delivered, and then it’s off to lunch at one of the store’s restaurants, where she chats with the models and compliments them on their clothes.
Reynolds was over 50 when she began this career. Some of her customers are also her friends, from the days when she and her first husband were hitting charity benefits on a regular basis.
Does she miss aspects of her social circuit days?
“Mmm-mmm,†she says, shaking her head. “I’m just really lucky that I’m able to do what I do, and I’m lucky I have my good life. A lot of things happen in life that make you look at life differently, so my values are totally different . . . and it’s kind of nice.
“I’ll have worked here eight years in June. I came here thinking I’d work for a couple of years. I never thought eight years,†she says, laughing. “No way. No way !â€
It was a dare from a friend who was working at the time for Williams Sonoma in Beverly Hills that started Reynolds in sales. “I walked in there one day and my friend asked, ‘What are you doing with your life now?’ And I said, ‘Bridge and golf,’ and she said, ‘Why don’t you come to work here?’ and I said, ‘No, thank you.’ But then I went home that night and thought about it, and thought it sounded like fun.â€
Her two grown daughters, as well as her friends, were supportive of her working. (Although she didn’t have to work then to support herself, she says she does now.) After a year at Williams Sonoma, she moved to Robinson’s Beverly Hills, and a year later she was at Neiman Marcus.
“I still love it,†she says. “I think you go through little stages (of burn-out), but it’s just really great right now.â€
Lunch finished, Reynolds hustles back to the dressing room, where the wife of a record company mogul has brought her pregnant daughter-in-law to search for maternity clothes. In another room, the CEO’s wife is having her red ball gown refitted; she needs to borrow a pair of high-heeled pumps to measure the length of the dress. “Brunos, if you can find them,†the woman says. In a room across the floor is the woman, there with her husband, buying resort clothes for an upcoming trip to Spain.
Reynolds sprints among all three rooms effortlessly, getting the shoes, searching a stockroom for special orders, taking a phone call. In between she talks with a customer who just dropped by to say hello and asks the woman if she’s had her parking validated.
Back in the dressing room, where the mother-to-be is wrapping things up, her mother-in-law points to a necklace and earrings in the catalogue and asks Reynolds if she can order them for her. “I don’t have anything like that,†she says.
Reynolds nods and makes a mental note. She doesn’t write it down. Doesn’t have to.
