Henri Bendel "Open See" Recap
It's official, I'm "Too Edgy" for Henri Bendel. As you may, or may not know, on Friday, March 26, I dragged my behind out of bed at 4 am to get to the Henri Bendel "Open See". I arrived on the line at 7:30 in the morning and there were at least 100 people on line in front of me already. True to their word, at 9 AM the line started moving and we were shuffled in to the building in groups of 20. ...escorted downstairs to wait on another line to sign in by category of business, from there we went to a waiting room, where Henri Bendel graciously provided coffee and tea.
It is not an exaggeration when I tell you, of the hundreds of people that showed up for the open see, at least 95% were jewelry vendors. At around 12:30, I got my five minutes to pitch my product to one of the accessory buyers. She flipped through my catalog, looked at 5 of the 7 trays I brought, looked up at me and said "you're too edgy for us".
"Too edgy", hmmm...I can not tell you that I did not see that coming, because I did. My items are somewhat sophisticated, yet definitely edgy. In a word "chaotically couture". However, I got out of it what I wanted; the experience and the exposure. The preparation for this meeting also forced me to create the wholesale catalog that I was putting off for ages. With the new product and catalog finished MerCurios is ready for the next chapter, with wonderful things on the horizon.
