Feeder was going to travel to Paris, bringing the wedding gown which I have booked from Malaysia. I would need to hire a make-up artist and a hair stylist in Paris. With the help of Google I settled with Charles Gillman. He had good testimonials, experienced with Asian facial features, responsive in emails, reasonably priced (85 euro for photoshoot), and most importantly, he could speak English.
In our email correspondence I asked for reference of a hair stylist and he introduced me to one whom he always worked with. Her name was Danielle Carson, charging at 80 euro. I paid Charles the deposit, confirmed the appointment, and scheduled for them to arrive at my hotel at 6:30 am.
Therefore I had all the items on my list checked, or so I thought.
On the day of the photoshoot, at 6:30 am I checked my email, and saw this:
From: Danielle Carson <danfrancar@gmail.com>
To: shinloo <shinloo@yahoo.com>
Cc: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com
Sent: Sep 28, 2013 1:08:21 AM
Dear Shinloo,
How are you? I hope you read this e mail in time, I am right in the middle of fashion week and I had a show booked on the day of your shoot at 10 am. Unfortunately they changed the call time to 6 am just today. I am just e mailing you now because I just got in from doing three shows and haven't had a second to stop all day and they just informed us a couple hours ago.
What I can propose is I can do your hair for you at 5 am today, if you read this in time, but unfortunately it's impossible to cancel the show.
I'm really really sorry this has never happened before I will happily try and accommodate you at 5AM and I tried calling other hairdressers I know but unfortunately it's too last minute.
I hope we can figure something out in time,
Again I am so sorry,
Danielle Carson
I stared at it for 2 minutes. Re-read and re-read. The email was sent 5 hours before our appointment. I almost cried. What could I do without a hair stylist?
Then I started calling Charles, who told me he went to the wrong hotel branch. He was supposed to come to Residhome Hotel in La Defense, but instead he went to another branch in God-knows-where. But fear not, as he was on his way. He said he couldn't get in touch with Danielle and then I told him about Danielle's email.
At about 7:30 am he arrived. We wasted some time to discuss whether or not to go on with the photoshoot. And then we decided to get the make-up done first and think of the hair later. Charles was nice and helpful. He tried to search for a salon nearby that I could go to. And he kept apologizing on Danielle's behalf.
 |
| Charles working his magic hands on me. |
After Charles left, my colleagues and I spent some time having brain storming session on what to do with my hair. Couldn't have done it without them. =)
 |
| From left - Nicole, Chloe and SeeYee. Me sitting in the middle. |
In the end I still decided to leave it to the professional since the salon nearby was already open for business, which, as far as I know, was very unusual in France. After some hand-waving and picture-showing we finally got the salon to understand what we wanted.
 |
| Me and Feeder, in front of my office building in La Defense. |
This was how I began a long day of pre-wedding photoshoot in Paris.
Hence fellow brides out there, heed my warning! DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT hire Danielle Carson the hair stylist in Paris. I pray that the same fate will fall upon her on her wedding, and her birthday, and her prom night (I guess she's too old for that), and any important event in her life!
Don't get me wrong - Charles Gillman did a fabulous job! But this Danielle, she's irresponsible, unprofessional and useless! Below was an email I sent after the photoshoot:
From: shinloo
Cc: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com
Sent: Oct 4, 2013 6:18:34 PM
Danielle,
Sending your email 5 hours before our appointment, I am sure you already knew I will not be able to read your email in time. This is equivalent to not showing up at the last minute and totally unprofessional.
Charles,
I am grateful for your effort to try to help. I believe it was a bad day for both of us. I hope you will be wise in selecting your partners in the future.
Shinloo
Below was Charles' reply:
From: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com
To: shinloo
Sent: Oct 7, 2013 1:44:50 PM
Hello Shinloo,
Sorry for the delayed reply, this weekend’s been rather busy. I just wanted to thank you for your email and I really hope that your shoot was enjoyable despite the actions of Danielle that morning. I wanted to let you know that we had a firm two hour discussion on Tuesday morning to follow up on her bad client service with yourself. Following on from this, we’ve made a decision that she will no longer be working with Charles Gillman Cosmetics – Paris, as she doesn’t fit our philosophy of superior customer service.
Once again I apologise profusely, it was lovely to meet you and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your stay in Paris.
Kindest regards.
Charles
Great! Serves her right! I hope this ruins her career!
