On a weekday morning in June at the Elyse Walker Boutique in Los Angeles, Molly Rabuchin has three racks loaded with provisions for clients who want to come by later that day. No—it’s four racks. Now five, and it’s barely noon.
The black metal contraptions are custom-made for the store and include low white shelves for shoes, like rolling fashion shopping carts. Molly (as her clients know her) ties ribbons around them to protect the goods from the clutches of other shoppers. One rack awaits a client who rushed in earlier to prepare for an upcoming trip to Saint-Tropez.
She wants loose clothes. “I’m a sweat-er. I don’t want to sweat.
I’ll be dancing,” the woman said. Molly has selected a Celine bias-cut dress, various pieces from Ulla Johnson, Johanna Ortiz, and Dolce & Gabbana, bathing suits from Fendi and Saint Laurent , a pile of Bottega Veneta , and Fendi sandals and bags. A rack near the dressing rooms is reserved for a regular who’s headed to Cannes.
There’s another for a customer with closets in the Hamptons, Rome, and L.A. who wants Molly to clean them all out.
(She’s happy to oblige.) Molly is packing a tissue-paper-lined box to be delivered to a woman who needn’t trouble herself to come to the store to see a cozy beige reversible Gucci-logo cardigan and a few other temptations. Nearly a third of the Elyse Walker stores’ sales are “on memo” like this one, sent to clients’ homes where they can try on at their leisure and buy what they ke.