DOCUMENTARY; 1hr 33min
DIRECTED BY: Matthew Miele
Sole music: Louboutin
Name-dropping fashionistas will be in high-style hog heaven as beau monde leading lights weigh in on what Bergdorf Goodman, New York’s renowned Fifth Avenue department store, means to them. (Spoiler alert: A lot.) Karl Lagerfeld, Christian Louboutin, Óscar De La Renta, Joan Rivers, Diane Von Fürstenberg — and that’s within the first couple of minutes!
Writer-director Miele, who takes the appropriately OTT title from a 1990 Victoria Roberts cartoon, divvies his fancy bouquet into a bunch of branches that cover the reverential input of designers, the coming together of spectacular window displays, a potted history of the building and a bit on the business end. (Who knew that Bergdorf’s high-end sales assistants can earn up to $500,000 per annum?) Celebs, store execs, buyers, personal shoppers and assorted media authorities are also present and politically correct, waxing lyrical about the cultural significance of retail’s crème de la crème honeypot. It all smacks of slavish advertorial, but, really, what’s not to savour about the cogs and wheels of luxury as a minutely curated way of life?
