Louise James Boutique — Local services in Winter Park

This boutique is phenomenal! It is aesthetically pleasing and very inviting! Absolutely beautiful inside. Loved the femininity and sheekness in the colors and styles for all ages. Don’t be fooled by the location or how lavish the boutique looks. Everything in the boutique is very affordable! The owner is incredibly kind and generous. She made us feel so welcomed and took amazing care of me and my tween daughter. Please support this small business! You won’t be disappointed!

I was waiting for someone at LuLuLemon. I decided to stroll down the sidewalk and look around. I see this gorgeous boutique a few doors down. My tween daughter begs me to go inside. I’m hesitant because I feel like this is going to be a Pretty Woman moment where the boutique personnel will snub me based on my appearance. Not to mention I consider myself at best middle class. My go to stores are normally Marshall’s or TJ Maxx, so this store scared me! I was dragged in by my tween daughter. She saw a necklace she wanted. I was sure I would have to mortgage our home for it. As you walk in you’re hit with such a pleasing smell. The decor is so feminine and truly beautiful. My tween wanted everything in here! Me too!! There was a style for every little girl to the woman in your life, including jewelry. I was so afraid to turn over the price tag! Imagine my surprise when everything was so affordable! I could have spent all day in here! We finally decided on some trendy necklace my daughter saw. Again, expecting the necklace to be ridiculously priced. Nope!! $40!! What?! It was a re-creation but affordable and such good quality! The owner checked us out. Wow!! What a kind, lovely person. She took the time to treat my daughter like a princess in there! Made her feel so special. I was so grateful and humbled that this complete stranger would be so kindhearted and thoughtful towards us. No Pretty Woman ending here! More like Cinderella! We walked out feeling so good about ourselves and vowed to come back for her next school dance dress. PLEASE don’t walk by and think you can’t afford to shop here in Winter Park. I get it. It looks too expensive to shop, but it’s not! The fashion is unique and trendy enough for my tween so you know the selection is phenomenal. Don’t give your money to Marshall’s or TJ Maxx when this boutique can offer you an experience that’s so much better. You will pay the same for a much higher quality, unique and trendy selection. A must...

Easily the rudest experience I’ve ever had at a boutique or shop of any kind. My friends and I came in to browse and try on some of the dresses. While we were doing so a lady with a British accent came over and told us the pieces were handmade and that it was “inappropriate” for us to be trying them on and “having a photoshoot”. We had been let into the dressing rooms. I don’t know how it is across the pond but here that’s not how we treat potential customers. We were outright insulted by this woman when we were tucked in the back bothering no one. Apparently she is the founder. Also, the quality of the pieces were very poor. Thin straps, loose threads, cheap buckles and stitching. I was genuinely stunned and would never go back.

UPDATE: In response to the owner’s reply. Not because I care about convincing this woman, but for the sake of future customers.

We didn’t say anything “rude” until we were spoken to rudely first. That’s the end of that. The owner seems to have a habit of lying as I look at other reviews. For example, claiming only one person attends the store at a time. This is simply not true.

If we had been politely asked to put the clothes back we would have been happy to. The issue happened in the manner in which we were addressed.

It’s true we were taking pictures of ourselves in the dresses. Nothing we did would be anything we wouldn’t do in our own clothes. If we damaged anything (which I know we did not), then they will fall apart the first time someone wears it in the real world.

We did not say we were not interested in buying anything. We were asked if we were going to an event and we said no, and that’s when the comments mentioned were said by the woman. My friend was actually interested in the skirt she had tried on. I was not interested in the dress I tried due to the poor quality mentioned above. Handmade does not automatically mean high value or high quality.

We were berated and bullied into changing out of the dresses immediately and then yelled at some more when we left the dressing rooms, so of course we left the store as quickly as possible. Anyone who was spoken to the way we were would...

I have never experienced such appalling customer service as I did with Louise James.

This so-called “boutique” clearly doesn’t value potential customers. After trying a dress on, and looking at the dress in the mirror, the English lady running the store approached me and rudely dismissed me, outright saying the dress I was looking at “wasn’t for me” and it “wasn’t appropriate to try on the dress” when her associate literally opened the dressing room for me.

Her tone was condescending, her attitude unprofessionally petty, and frankly, it felt like she went out of her way to be aggressively rude.

Honestly, she did me a favor because the quality of the dress was garbage anyway—cheap fabric, poor stitching, and nowhere near worth the price she was charging. If she spent half as much time improving her merchandise as she does belittling potential customers, maybe she’d have a business worth supporting.

Save yourself the insult and the waste of money—shop...