Stella Laguna Beach — Local services in Fresno

I walk into Stella wearing a cute $60 dress I had just bought from their store… that I couldn't take off. Why? Because the side zipper jammed halfway up and had me trapped. My partner couldn’t unzip it, I couldn’t unzip it, even my beloved seamstress Maral (shoutout to a real queen!) couldn’t make it budge. The dress was defective, and I was officially imprisoned. So I return to the store, clutching a pair of cargo pants to cover my indecently exposed side, expecting a simple refund—or at least an offer to cover the repair. Instead, I got a masterclass in Karen-level customer service… from the owner. Victoria Saulovich was working a display table. I approached with good, playful energy (because frankly, the situation was ridiculous and kind of hilarious). Her response? “We’ll give you store credit.” Wait—what? I explain the dress is literally stuck to my body and unusable. Her solution? She hands me a pair of scissors and says with a smirk: “Have fun.” Sorry, what?! You want me to cut a zipper off myself, mid-armpit, with my non-dominant hand—while still wearing the damn thing? And also, why am I being mistreated because your store sold me malfunctioning merchandise? I politely told Victoria I felt she was being rude. One of her young managers, Jacki (props to her), intervened and actually spoke to me with professionalism. Victoria? She stormed off. From the dressing room, I called my seamstress, who kindly offered to stay in her store late and help remove the dress without destroying it. Awesome. I head to the register. But alas—Victoria was gone. The two managers informed me I couldn’t get a refund unless I left the dress behind. “But it’s stuck to my body…” “If you want your money back, we need the dress.” “But it’ll be unwearable and unsellable if I cut it off!” “Our boss said no.” “And where is your boss now?” Cue slamming doors from the back of the store. “She… appears to have just left.” Left. Bolted. Peaced out mid-confrontation. Who does that? An owner acting a third of the age of her two twenty-something employees. Let me be clear: I’ve shopped here before. I don’t expect designer quality. These are fast-fashion pieces priced around $50. I’ve never complained. I’m not a “Karen.” I wasn’t asking for a miracle, just a reasonable solution to a very awkward, very solvable problem. Even offering $30 to cover the repair would've been fine.

Instead, I got condescension, avoidance, and a pair of scissors.

So… bye, Stella. I won’t be back. There are dozens of small boutiques that sell cute clothes and treat customers with basic human decency. You can do better. You should do better. And Victoria? You just got outclassed by employees...

Yesterday I went in with my daughter because we were having a day just her and me. We decided to go in because I have a couple concerts coming up and I wanted to check out what they had. Mind you this was around 4:30 ish time in the afternoon. I was the only person in the store with my daughter when I walked in, other than what I’m assuming were two workers, two women who could not give the time of day to another soul if they tried.

Neither of them looked at me once.. I was going to ask them for help but I felt like I couldn’t as they were talking to each other about a “pretty shitty prior customer coming in and asking for one of the girls numbers even though he had a girlfriend.” Not quite sure what it was about other than they were gossiping about another customer, and that somehow dropped into the conversation. They were calling him names and saying how terrible he was. I just continued to look around waiting for somebody to acknowledge me in the meantime..

Mind you I walked around with my daughter for a bit. Almost 3-5 minutes (it felt like forever) I had never really been in that store because I always feel like I just won’t find anything my style. I happened to like some of the clothes in there and my daughter liked the jewelry. I probably would’ve walked out and bought something there if they had talked to me. But instead I just spent a ton at bath and body works with my daughter, got a mid lunch/dinner, and tea. Called it a day and went home. I’m not sure if they were disrespectful and rude because I was in boots and jeans, or if it was something else.. but either way they made me feel really uncomfortable and I won’t be going back until there is friendlier staff. Both of these girls need to have some lessons in hospitality, professionalism, and observation to what is going on outside their...

I’ve never really had a good experience at Stella, but it’s never been enough to write a review. Until this experience.

I went in and purchase a few items and was charged twice, 250$ total charged twice. I contacted the store immediately after talking with my bank and making sure if was a legit charge, which they told me to contact the store to see if we could get it resolved without going through the long annoying process of disputes. So that’s what I did; the manager that I spoke with was very kind and helpful and ultimately could not make any decisions without the owners consent, I want make it known that she was very nice and did everything she could.

I sent screen shots and receipts of my bank statements to prove my card was charged twice. She was told that they would be sending me a check to avoid disputes two weeks ago, so that was the solution that was communicated to me. Then a week after I informed them I hadn’t received anything and asked if I could see the tracking. At that time I was told nothing was sent and the owner wanted to confirm everything. I was frustrated that nobody communicated this with me, but I was patient and was told contact the store back this past Tuesday with the solution.

When I did, she told me to just file a dispute. After two weeks of no communication and being told they would make things right I’m still having to file a dispute that I could have done two weeks ago. The owner of this establishment is absolutely awful. She ultimately had a system issue that caused her system to charge me 500$ instead of 250$ and gave me the runaround for two weeks.

Disappointing and unfair. Make things right or at least don’t let me wait for two weeks without communicating the situation. It’s easier for her, it’s harder on me and it’s bad business....