The Lady Guide to Modern Manners: 18 January
Dear Thomas,
I had an awful time at the sales this year. Worse than ever. It was dog-eat-dog – and more. Can anything be done? Carolyn Blundell, Solihull
Dear Carolyn,
The great rush of sales was immediately after Christmas but the wise shoppers amongst us will be out hunting down those miraculous late sale bargains until well into February.
In the old days, it was said that on the first day of the Harrods sale, so frantic were people to lay their hands on some Wedgwood, much of it got smashed. Fights would break out over the pillowcases in Peter Jones and tablecloths were torn asunder in a tug-of-war between rival shoppers (‘I got it first’) at Bourne & Hollingsworth.
Destruction on this scale is heard of less these days, putting the lie, perhaps, to the idea of a golden past of exquisite manners. All the same, many people I know refuse to go anywhere near the sales, on account of the rapacious atmosphere, the jostling, the being leant over and finding the item you were just about to pick up snatched from view by a savage pair of hands.
It’s no use pretending it’s a team effort. We’re forging into those shops because we want things and we don’t want anyone else to get them. But an experienced sales shopper will be able to remain calm and gracious by the following means: she (I’m using ‘she’ as the generic, not because I assume all shoppers are women) will have carried out a pre-sale recce and made up her mind which goods to target. If assaulting a large department store, she will have worked out which entrance will take her most directly to her desired department. She will dash in, SAS-style, seize her chosen items, pay and get out. She won’t be in anyone else’s way, she won’t reach the bottom of the escalator then stop to gain her bearings, causing a pile-up of persons behind her. Her strategy will minimise her own suffering.
The successful sales shopper is determined but also able, if pushed aside by over-wrought, hysterical, would-be purchasers, to step back wisely and calmly assure herself that the right handbag or whatever will drop into her lap in due course. If there are queues for the till or changing room, she will ascend in her mind to a cloud hovering gently above the throng.
The sales is not a time to be engineering social improvement. Don’t even try to confront competitors who’ve scratched you (by accident?) by the scarf bin. Notice nothing. They’re just not there.
I don’t advise visiting the sales in groups, as a family outing, or even with one friend. Then you’ll be dithering and talking and not making up your mind. You’ll be buffeted every which way.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
So, plainly I must provide a selection of suitable excuses for such a situation. If you live in a small community, you might end up fully ostracised, but I’m only trying to help.
Say ‘I never go out in January.’ In this low, non-month you might just be believed – post-Christmas and all that. ‘I never go out in May,’ would be less convincing.
Also, by next January, when you wish to accept an invitation to dine with the Queen at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and stay the night in a suite, maybe everyone will have forgotten that you never go out in January.
Or you can say you’re writing a novel. Whether anyone believes you isn’t really the point. It’s one step up from saying ‘I don’t want to go.’
I had an awful time at the sales this year. Worse than ever. It was dog-eat-dog – and more. Can anything be done? Carolyn Blundell, Solihull
Dear Carolyn,
The great rush of sales was immediately after Christmas but the wise shoppers amongst us will be out hunting down those miraculous late sale bargains until well into February.
In the old days, it was said that on the first day of the Harrods sale, so frantic were people to lay their hands on some Wedgwood, much of it got smashed. Fights would break out over the pillowcases in Peter Jones and tablecloths were torn asunder in a tug-of-war between rival shoppers (‘I got it first’) at Bourne & Hollingsworth.
Destruction on this scale is heard of less these days, putting the lie, perhaps, to the idea of a golden past of exquisite manners. All the same, many people I know refuse to go anywhere near the sales, on account of the rapacious atmosphere, the jostling, the being leant over and finding the item you were just about to pick up snatched from view by a savage pair of hands.
It’s no use pretending it’s a team effort. We’re forging into those shops because we want things and we don’t want anyone else to get them. But an experienced sales shopper will be able to remain calm and gracious by the following means: she (I’m using ‘she’ as the generic, not because I assume all shoppers are women) will have carried out a pre-sale recce and made up her mind which goods to target. If assaulting a large department store, she will have worked out which entrance will take her most directly to her desired department. She will dash in, SAS-style, seize her chosen items, pay and get out. She won’t be in anyone else’s way, she won’t reach the bottom of the escalator then stop to gain her bearings, causing a pile-up of persons behind her. Her strategy will minimise her own suffering.
The successful sales shopper is determined but also able, if pushed aside by over-wrought, hysterical, would-be purchasers, to step back wisely and calmly assure herself that the right handbag or whatever will drop into her lap in due course. If there are queues for the till or changing room, she will ascend in her mind to a cloud hovering gently above the throng.
The sales is not a time to be engineering social improvement. Don’t even try to confront competitors who’ve scratched you (by accident?) by the scarf bin. Notice nothing. They’re just not there.
I don’t advise visiting the sales in groups, as a family outing, or even with one friend. Then you’ll be dithering and talking and not making up your mind. You’ll be buffeted every which way.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
WHAT TO DO… when declining an invitation
Back in November I wrote about turning down invitations and tried to encourage my dear readers to embrace social opportunities with enthusiasm, however awful the prospect. But, Shirley Tracy writes from Northampton, what if you really, really don’t want to go? She imagines a scenario in which someone has already indicated that they have the date free, but still they decline the offer.So, plainly I must provide a selection of suitable excuses for such a situation. If you live in a small community, you might end up fully ostracised, but I’m only trying to help.
Say ‘I never go out in January.’ In this low, non-month you might just be believed – post-Christmas and all that. ‘I never go out in May,’ would be less convincing.
Also, by next January, when you wish to accept an invitation to dine with the Queen at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and stay the night in a suite, maybe everyone will have forgotten that you never go out in January.
Or you can say you’re writing a novel. Whether anyone believes you isn’t really the point. It’s one step up from saying ‘I don’t want to go.’