Still spending, but not so fast

Among Christmas shoppers, the talk is of ‘caution’ and ‘holding off for the sales’. But the death of Irish retailing has been exaggerated if we’re to believe Dublin’s biggest department stores, which are ticking along nicely with sales of €4,000 bags, Louboutin shoes and iPads THIS YEAR, for the lucky ones with cash, the watchword is discretion. The jolly, girly New York shopping flights have died, killed by New York prices and the new culture of austerity. Some have diverted to Chicago, Orlando or Boston, but you won’t hear them boasting about it. The notion of the one-day transatlantic shopping trip – depart 10.30am, shop for a frenzied seven hours, return at 7.30am, 23 hours later – is now heresy. Or is it? The trick is not to be seen spending it, says Jacky Byrne, a retail consultant. It’s less about sparkle, more about vouchers. And there’s no panic, says Byrne. Sara Mullen emerges from Marks Spencer lugging an enormous brown box. “We’re going for practical. Totally,” she says earnestly. “For example, the four of us usually club together for something for Mum and Dad: a few years ago, we got them a week-long trip to Rome. This year it’s a good mattress topper.” Right on cue, her sister appears, swinging three Jo Malone bags, containing about €300 worth of exquisitely wrapped, utterly impractical perfume and scented candles inside. Wouldn’t Rome have been cheaper on the whole? “Hmmm. I know. You set out full of holiness and notions about some really good sheets and home-made chutney . . .” says the sister with a nervous laugh. “But that’s me done now.” She, of course, is the retailers’ dream: the one who sets out to get a jacket for her 16-year-old daughter and ends up with a pair of Swarovski crystal headphones. According to Brown Thomas, the €100 Deos headphones are their bestseller by a mile, followed by Lanvin notebooks and pens, Tiffany bangles in rose and red gold, Mulberry “Alexa” bags, J Brand Agnes jeans, something – anything – from Stella McCartney, scarves by the dear departed Alexander McQueen, the Nazareth candle by Cire Trudon, Moncler ski jackets, Black Orchid fragrance from Tom Ford and anything at all in a be-ribboned Jo Malone box. At around 6pm on Wednesday, nine days before Christmas, Brown Thomas is ticking over nicely; not a lot happening in the women’s clothes departments – the Ladies Who Shop are dressed for Christmas by now anyway, one imagines – but the Mac make-up counters are conspicuously heaving, there’s an angsty swarm around the Jo Malone outlet, a steady throughflow in Tiffany’s, some grave perusing of scarves in Louis Vuitton, a thorough scrutinising of handbags in accessories, heavy movement in the vast cosmetics area, five nail technicians working flat out at Nails Inc and a rolling, 12-strong queue at the Nespresso (coffee machines advertised by George Clooney) tills upstairs. The store is fresh out of the “unique” Hermes bag (specially designed for the Marvel Room), says Stephen Sealy, managing director of Brown Thomas. That’s about eight bags at €4,000 a pop. They can’t keep enough Louboutin shoes in stock – “the Irish customer has an enormous appetite for the lovely Louboutins” – so those towering, red-soled, €395-plus objects of desire are soon to get their own little boutique downstairs. And the children’s clothes are moving back from BT2 to the main store, complete with various types of bespoke parquet flooring to designate different areas. The way forward for BT, says Sealy, is to strive for the difference between “grand” (the Irish version of “it’s fine”) and “wow!”. Is he making this up? “No, no. The Irish consumer doesn’t have an appetite for the hairshirt. At some point, the ‘oh sod it’ mentality kicks in,” he says, stroking a nice piece of bespoke parquet. “There is a greater element of planning” at play this Christmas, he says, so his job, frankly, is to “tempt people”. Thus, the €100 glittery headphones. “The death of Irish retailing has been greatly exaggerated. You can sit and moan or you can do things,” he says, mentioning that they’ve run 300 “temptation events” in stores this year. The heaving counter in Arnotts on Henry Street is Pandora jewellery’s, simple chunky bracelets and clever, non-dangly charms that have spawned a dozen imitators. Sales of desirable Apple products – such as the iPad, selling for €500 to €700 – are booming, the Bobbi Brown cosmetics counter has a queue and an Arnotts’ own-brand man’s sweater at about €60 euro is flying out the door. Nigel Blow, the managing director of Arnotts, hasn’t noticed any “huge change in shopping habits” this year. “It’s not that people aren’t spending; they’re just being more considered, more deliberate about it. The key thing they want is value but that doesn’t necessarily mean cheap. “I can tell you for sure that business is not reflecting everything we’ve been reading and hearing about. People are spending. Henry Street is performing really well. You’ll see no empty or unoccupied stores. Fatface and Forever 21 [a young fashion label] have just moved in and they’ve been phenomenal. They’ve genuinely brought people into Henry Street.”