By David Abel | Globe Staff | 1/22/2006
The brick-front palace opens its gates to hoi polloi for two weeks every year.
And when it does, there's a hint of mayhem in the Back Bay.
So hungry for Helmut Lang jeans and Dries Van Noten sweaters, the prices of which last week struck one especially couture-challenged reporter as either a mistake or bordering on insane, they line up in droves in the cold, sometimes waiting for hours.
When the doors finally open, with some sort of electronica pulsing from the sound system, hundreds of unwashed fashionistas -- OK, these commoners aren't exactly beggars -- rush to the racks, some tripping over one another on the hardwood floor.
At 50 percent off, for God's sake, there are deals to be had!
Of course, at Louis Boston, the word "sale" is all relative. The century-old clothing store on Berkeley Street regularly sells men's corduroy pants for $495, polo shirts for $295, and shoes that look like they came from a bowling alley for $450.
And that's the cheap stuff. The price tag on one pily tweed blazer read $3,950.
Yet at the store's most recent weeklong markdown, which ended last week, the customers seemed like children in a candy store. They couldn't get enough of it.
A political science researcher at Harvard, Tadashi Yamomota, discovered the biannual sale last summer, after it was too late. He vowed not to miss it again this month, when Louis (pronounced LOO-eez, almost like a certain French royal known as the Sun King) clears out its winter stock for the new season.
Prowling for presents on his second day at the sale -- the previous day he dropped $6,000 for a suit, three ties, two shirts, and a pair of socks -- the excited 46-year-old scholar from Tokyo plans to spend another $2,000.
"This seems cheap," he says. "In Japan, it would cost $20,000 -- and you get service here."
Would he wear such extravagant threads on campus, where elbow pads are more de rigueur?
"At Harvard, I stick to `Irish style,' more poor but pure of mind," he says, while ogling stacks of the remaining collared dress shirts, which sell for hundreds of dollars, even with the discount. "I prefer to save these Italian clothes for New York, or a night out in Boston."
Kendra Torode says she has shopped at Louis, a grand building that once housed the old New England Museum of Natural History, since she was 3 years old.
Still tagging along with her mom, the 24-year-old from Acton looks at shorts with a $250 price tag and Prada boots that regularly sell for $550. Her job in public relations (and Mom's largesse) affords her only so much indulgence, even during the sale.
"I try not to go crazy," she says, noting the smattering of CDs available for only $10.
Then there's David Ribak, who says he's just thankful he didn't miss the sale, which he was reminded of while reading a newspaper a few days before at a Four Seasons resort in Mexico.
Rifling though silk ties on the last day of the sale, when prices are marked down another 10 percent, the 58-year-old divorce lawyer from Chestnut Hill says he bought his first suit at Louis 35 years ago, and he's tried to hit every sale since then.
Now he owns two dozen suits, and he's considering one more. He holds up a chalk-striped Brioni that regularly sells for $3,995. He admires it. "This is a power suit I can wear in court," he says.
Then he adds, to the chagrin of the store's top management, who say they don't want to promote the sale so much that their customers won't come the rest of the year: "I never would buy this at regular price."
Reached on her cellphone in a taxi in Milan, Debi Greenberg, who three years ago officially took over the business from her father, explains why her prices aren't unreasonable: After favorably comparing her merchandise to what she referred to as the middling garments for sale at the Gap, which she suggests has a higher profit margin, she offers this adage: "You get what you pay for."
Asked why anyone would spend $200 for a T-shirt or $3,000 for a leather jacket, she says: "Most men don't understand the quality of good clothing."
The 50-year-old fashion guru offers an analogy. "Some cars are $10,000, some cars are $50,000, and some cars are $100,000," she says. "The same thing happens with clothes, even with T-shirts."
Then she really puts it in perspective: "The sale is like getting a Mercedes at half off."
But it's over now. The day after the sale ended, last Monday, Louis closes for the day.
After taking what they want for 75 percent off, Greenberg's employees group the sweaters, jackets, pants -- whatever's left over, or about 7 percent of the winter stock -- on racks, where they're scanned and packed in boxes.
Then they're sent to Filene's Basement, which pays Louis a percentage between 75 and 90 percent off the original price, Greenberg says.
The sale lives on there, where hoi polloi shop, at least until the Louis cycle returns in the summer.
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel.
Copyright, The Boston Globe
