Vivienne Westwood fans' Journal (original) (raw)

As many of you guys are experiencing, Hervia is have problems shipping orders (mine included).

After doing a little digging, and talking to some friends who live in the Manchester area near the brick and mortar stores, I think I know what is happening.

For the tl;dr crowd:
Vivienne Westwood ltd got into a lawsuit with Hervia last summer after an attempt to cancel their 60 year contract early, Hervia fought back to keep the contract citing breach of agreement. If Hervia loses, the contract will be canceled at the end of this month, January. Hervia knew as of Sept 2011 that there was a possibility they would lose the lawsuit and not get restocked for their orders. They continued with business as usual despite this fact. (source)

A couple weeks ago, the brick and mortar Hervia/VW stores in the UK started having fire sales of their stock, not just the end of season stock, but this includes regularly stocked non-seasonal gold label items like the pirate boots and animal toe pumps that almost never go on sale. Web orders stopped shipping out, and customer service stopped responding to emails.

While there is no information online regarding the possibility of Hervia store closures or any followups to the initial lawsuit news articles announcing who won, the activities at Hervia seem to be evidence that things aren't going in their favor. My assumption is that the staff no longer is providing customer service (which was crap to begin with tbh), as the contract most likely will end in a week, causing them to have short timers syndrome before they lose their jobs.

As Hervia.com is failing to respond to any emails, customers are taking to public forums to demand answers. Dozens of people are calling them out on their twitter and facebook page, but instead of taking the time to respond to each person's questions, they've instead taken the time to delete the comments. Now customers are starting threads angrily questioning the state of the company in their facebook photo galleries, hoping to get any response and spread awareness before the next wave of deletions.

However, despite Hervia not lifting a finger, it seems Vivienne Westwood's main company is taking some responsibility and has been providing refunds out of their own pocket. (source).

I also have an order stuck in 'processing', so I'm hoping that emailing VW's customer service department will provide some more answers. If you haven't received your orders, and are looking for refunds, I would suggest doing the same.
customerservice@viviennewestwood.co.uk

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More sources regarding the lawsuit:
Source 1
Source 2

[update 1/24]
Hervia has deleted their store's official facebook page. :/

And I have not yet gotten a response from either Hervia or VW regarding my order. This blows.

[update 2 - 1/25]
I emailed again, threatening to do a charge back if I don't receive any answers by Monday, and within 15 minutes I got a reply from the main Vivienne Westwood customer service department, who basically just said they would forward my email to Hervia's commercial department.

No progress what so ever.