Oprah Winfrey felt discriminated against when she tried to purchase a $35,000 Tom Ford bag at the Trois Pommes store in Switzerland.
“I had my little Donna Karan skirt and my little sandals and all that on, but obviously The Oprah Winfrey Show is not shown in Zurich,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “This doesn’t happen to me unless somebody obviously doesn’t know it was me.”
A sales clerk wouldn’t show her the luxury crocodile bag, she says, telling her “No, it’s too expensive.” Winfrey asked to see it a second time but she was denied again.
“‘No, no, no. You don’t want to see that one. You want to see this one because that one will cost too much and you will not be able to afford that,’” Winfrey recalled the clerk saying.
After being shown some other, less expensive bags, Winfrey tried again to see the Tom Ford bag, but was denied again, with the clerk telling her “Oh, I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” That’s when Winfrey walked out.
“I could have had the big blowup thing and thrown down the black card and all that stuff,” Winfrey said, “but why do that?”
The situation is being misconstrued, according to Trudie Goetz, head of the Swiss luxury chain Trois Pommes.
“This is an absolute misunderstanding,” she told US Weekly in a statement. “Any sales person would love to sell a crocodile bag. She simply explained [to Oprah] that the bag she wanted to look at was beautiful but in a very high price range and suggested lower priced models in leather, ostrich and so forth.”
The clerk in question, of Italian descent, also doesn’t speak English as well as Italian, said Goetz.
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