THE INVITED

WHEN YOU'RE A VIC-"VERY IMPORTANT CLIENT" -LUXURY BRANDS ANYTHING TO KEEP YOU HAPPY (AND SPENDING). WILL DO

- CHANTAL FERNANDEZ

IT WAS JUST A FEW WEEKS BEFORE Chanel’s haute couture runway show in Paris this past June when Laura Sachs found out that she had made the guest list. For a true fashion aficionado like Sachs, who lives in Palm Beach, landing an invitation to Chanel couture is like finding one of Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets—except this ticket didn’t come her way by luck, not exactly. Sachs is what is known by the fashion brands as a VIC: a “very important client.” She gets recognized and rewarded for her loyalty, which keeps her coming back for more. After all, “seeing something walk the runway, and then having it in my closet, is, like, the ultimate high,” she says.

Sachs is a Chanel girl through and through. She celebrated the births of her two daughters by wearing a new pink Chanel jacket on each trip home from the hospital. She plans to do the same with her third daughter, who was due at the end of August. When the girls are older, each birthday jacket will be theirs.

Chanel welcomed Sachs to Paris with a bouquet of flowers in her suite at the Ritz, the same elegant hotel where Coco Chanel lived. (Her atelier, right across the street at 31 Rue Cambon, is where couture customers get to shop to this day.) She sat next to Pharrell Williams for dinner at the hotel one evening. Another night, she wore a floral caftan trimmed with ostrich feathers from Saint Laurent’s spring 2021 collection to see Aya Nakamura and Bad Bunny perform at Vogue World, Anna Wintour’s annual runway variety show. Sachs is also a member of the Vogue100, an invitation-only sorority of fashion enthusiasts who are almost certainly multi-label VICs. Its events give members a taste of the fashioneditor lifestyle, a chance to be insiders in a once completely closed world.