The Interview
By Amber Gibson, News Editor

Styleforfree:  FashionChateau is so different from other online shopping boutiques, because you offer a personal shopping assistant. How did you first come up with this idea??

Angela:  FashionChateau.com is focused on building one-on-one relationships with all of our customers. Our team remains driven to deliver personalized service with the latest in contemporary fashion. Each shopper is assigned a dedicated personal fashion consultant who maintains phone and email communications to assist customers in making future purchases. In addition to receiving a personal shopper, customers receive their purchases in a beautifully gift-wrapped box that always contains a gift with purchase and their shoppers business card.

Styleforfree:  How did you initially become involved in the fashion industry??

Angela:  My career began as an account executive at Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey, the world's pre-eminent luxury company where I was responsible for the fragrance division representation of 106 Northern California locations. My areas of expertise include sales, promotions, event planning, customer service and competitive research. I then drew on these capacities in working with a host of major department stores including Saks, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Dillard's, Bloomingdale's and Macy's.

SFF:  What were some of the biggest obstacles you had to overcome in starting your own e-commerce fashion boutique?

Angela:  Biggest obstacles by far would be finding the perfect team starting from the photographer, fashion consultants, website host and creators, and getting traffic to the site without breaking the bank!

SFF: Now that FashionChateau is an established boutique, what words of wisdom can you share with other fashion entrepreneurs?

Angela:  I suggest that anyone entering into this industry online, would make smart decisions to give your company at least a year to mature, it will not happen over night - no matter what you know or do. It just takes time.

SFF:  What are a few of the qualities you look for when hiring a personal fashion assistant?

Angela:  All of our fashion consultants are seasoned in the fashion industry, and experienced in retail customer service. Our team has a positive and winning attitude.


SFF:  How do match up a new customer with a personal fashion assistant?

Angela:  Whichever personal fashion consultant packs their order or helps them over email or by phone creates a personalized relationship with that new customer.

SFF:  At FashionChateau, you stress the importance of maintaining a personal relationship with your customers. You even include a gift with every purchase! Do you think this one-on-one relationship is the key to attracting loyal customers?

Angela:  It definitely helps! But our follow through and excellent customer service and care and the selection of products and our presentation compose the entire package for our loyal customers.

SFF:  How would you describe the kind of clothing that's a perfect fit for FashionChateau?

Angela:  The clothing at Fashion Chateau can best be described as of-the-moment must have items. We have everything from wardrobe staples to unique fashion-forward pieces. We have clothing for every type of woman, everything from fun and flirty, to elegantly sophisticated.

SFF:  Traveling around the world to search for the best fashion has to offer sounds like a luxurious job any woman would dream of. What is your favorite aspect of your job?

Angela:  I actually really enjoy going to LA, Vegas, New York and around the world to shop for clothing and styles and trends. Some other boutique owners I have talked to say they enjoy this part the least, but I think it is the corner stone of the company, and it's image and customer loyalty to really have passion for fashion and want to bring that to your customers door step. Also I love being highly involved with every single photoshoot, from choosing the models, photographer and the backdrop of lifestyle shoots. I really take pride in all aspects of what the customer visually sees.

SFF:  Have you made any great finds recently that we should definitely check out?

Angela:  I would have to say there are two brands that I just personally loved not because some celebrity was wearing it, or some celebrity created it, but because they were just really awesome brands and styles, the quality is amazing, attention to detail, price point is fantastic. And they are just flying off our shelves, we re order the styles over and over again for we cannot keep them in stock, those two brands are SKY and ROYAL PLUSH! InStyle fell in love with the black and army green Royal Plush Down Vest that we will be carrying November 15th.

Styleforfree.com readers receive 20% off all regularly-priced items at FashionChateau.com with coupon code: StyleForFree at checkout through 12/31/06.