Does my lady desire assistance in coordinating an outfit?
Swallowtail, located in the Ikebukuro neighborhood, is one of Tokyo’s most popular butler cafes, where handsome, smartly dressed men offer suave service to customers as they sip their herbal tea and dine on finger sandwiches and delicate pastries.
▼ Swallowtail butler cafe
However, a truly cultured lady knows that a butler’s role is not just to provide attentive assistance during high tea, but also while putting together an outfit of appropriate elegance for excursions to the theater, symphony, or doujinshi fan event. It’s for that purpose that Swallowtail has partnered with apparel brand Axes Femme, so that it can offer not only a butler cafe, but a butler shopping service as well.
The collaborative partners call these events “Secret Shopping.” Held at Axes Femme retail stores, participants are accompanied by a butler who offers advice and feedback in coordinating an outfit that suits her personal style and lets her shine her brightest. The aim is to create an atmosphere of sifting through the extensive wardrobe you keep at your mansion, one so large that you can benefit from a servant’s help to thoroughly navigate it.
Shopping sessions are roughly an hour and 10 minutes long, with advance reservations a must, ensuring that your butler is ready to help you from the first second of your appointed time. Swallowtail and Axes Femme have held Secret Shopping events in Tokyo a handful of times, but it wasn’t until this summer that they had their first in Osaka, taking place at Axes Femme’s store in the Hep Five shopping center in Osaka’s Umeda district.
▼ Some Secret Shopping events also include refreshments.
The Osaka event was so popular that there were roughly four times as many applicants as available reservation slots, even with a service charge of 20,000 yen (US$148) for the 24 women who made use of the butlers’ services while the store was closed to other shoppers, so odds are Axes Femme and Swallowtail are looking to expand the program to other cities as well.
Source, images: PR Times
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