A friend of mine from the States came into Bs As this past weekend, a shopaholic and label-whore, she wanted to check out Bs As ¨top¨ shopping. I had already advised her that here shopping in the sense of shopping in NYC or even in Europe is futile as everything is prohibitively, offensively overpriced and the seasons are things that in the States are already found in the outlets and TJ Maxx.
Nonetheless, we hit the boutiques at Patio Bullrich and Alvear, and what I saw was absolutely shocking. Most of these stores looked like they were in a state of liquidation, going out of business, and when asked about the blatant lack of merchandise, the sales personnel embarrassingly apologized and explained that the ¨K government¨ has issued a retention on all of their most recent shipments that have arrived into the country and there's no telling when they will allow them to recieve their new merchandise.
Louis Vuitton had a total of about 4 bags in the store. Tiffany's had a ring that was actually pretty affordable ($155 USD) but only had 1 left since they hadnt recieved any shipment since June.
The woman at Max Mara was desperate to sell my friend the only coat she had left in the store and told us that the company was probably going to be pulling out of the Bs As market as they were fed up with these ridiculous government restrictions, but that from a branding standpoint Max Mara like most of these names, wanted to maintain a presense in a city like Buenos Aires, but that at this point it was no longer worth it and did not have the caché it once had.
I know this sounds petty, and in these cases it probably will not affect many of us directly, but if this is happening to the imported boutiques, who earn their livelihoods (and the sales people earn their commissions) off of selling imported goods, it is a pretty accurate representation of many things to come in general.
