Susan San Francisco-Burlingame

This is my go-​to boutique for clothing on the high end. Be careful, though: the excellent customer service (Matthew will befriend you before you can say «my budget») will make you a dependent in no time!
The service focuses on customization, so chances are that if you spend money here, you’ll walk out with something unusual and perfectly suited to you/​your occasion.

This is one of my favorite clothing boutiques in SF, this and the sister store, The Grocery Store. They have a fantastic inventory and the sales staff are friendly and helpful. They are not at all the disinterested ‘shop girls’ at other similar boutiques. They are also wonderful at sending handwritten thank you notes and sending post cards announcing sales or new shipments.

Wow I love this store and everything they carry inside!
They carry the best selection of Undercover, Lanvin, Comme Des Garcons, Jil Sander, and Marni in town. Actually — it is known that Susan carries THE LARGEST independent selection of Lanvin in the country.
Ilisha was super duper friendly — helping me pick out quite a few items to try on and pair up. She was really really patient considering I spent about an hour and a half sifting through the beautiful items in the store.
In the end — I ended up getting a sweet jacket for about 60% off.
Get on their client list and you’ll get invites to their trunk shows too!

I love nice clothes. Hence, I love Susan. However, the service drives me nuts! These ladies are like used car salemen, and I can’t stand the way they follow me around and push, push, push. I have never witnessed a salesperson giving a client anything but the most effusive compliments — even when it is a too-​chubby woman in a too-​tight dress. Stick to Barneys.

I have never been treated so rudely by a salesperson before.
I walked into Susan with my sister-​in-​law, who happens to be quite the fashionista which I certainly am not. Still, I did not expect to be treated as though I were invisible. After introducing herself to us, the saleswoman proceeded to faun over my sister-​in-​law and completely ignore me. She pulled item after item to show her and never once asked us what we were looking for or offered to show me anything. To top it off, the selection was not that exciting to either one of us!
If I ever am in the market for a super-​fancy outfit, I would NOT buy it from this shop.
We were treated much better at Carrots and were more impressed with their selection.

I love fashion. I am from Italy and I lived in Paris for many years. This is NOT how you deal with customers. A great sales person understands when and with whom they can be pushy. It’s their job to deal with people all day long. There are some customers who need advice, who don’t know what they want and perhaps being pushy with them is ok. Then there are other customers –like myself — who just want to browse and be left alone. At Susan they really don’t understand this. For me, it is sooo annoying to look at clothes and have someone breathing behind your back. And as soon as you touch something they say how wonderful that piece is. How can you shop like this? I never bought anything there because I was annoyed. It makes me want to just shop in Paris.
It’s too bad because SF needs more independent stores.

Susan has the Best Balenciaga collection in town (Sometimes even better than the Balenciaga counter at Neiman). The staff here are also very sweet and welcoming. One time I wore my torn up jeans there and they didn’t look at me head-​to-​toe like people in other shops down the street. They are VERY good at selling though so don’t go there if you’re broke. I repeat! Even when you make up your mind that you’re just going to «try it on» or to «take a look», you’ll end up with a purse, a pair of stilettos to go with it, and possibly a dress as well.
Get on their mailing list and they’ll let you know about their sale events and new collections. If they have a sale, try to get there on the first day. You’ll be surprised at what are already «last season».

Susan has the avant garde stuff seen in the magazines, i.e., the architectural, out-​there pieces by Comme Des Garcons, Junya Watanabe, Undercover. Worth visiting for study alone.
Excellent staff.

Lanvin, Balenciaga, Chloe, Comme des Garcons …
my heart going boom boom boom.

They may have some great clothes, but who would want to stick around and find out. I was too busy beating off the incredibly pushy and presumptuous sales girl to get a chance to look at anything. You’d think her next meal depended on my purchase. She actually tried to get me to buy something by saying, «come on, it’s only money.» So I left and went down the street to Nicollett where I bought some great items from some mellow, but helpful gals.

I am a self proclaimed ‘fashionista’, and love high end clothing especially designer dresses. Susan has the best of the best. Lanvin, Prada, Marni, Balenciaga, etc. The selection is sometimes better than Saks or Neimans, and the unique selection of designers are a rare find in San Francisco. But… the service is unbelievably annoying and atrocious. I feel suffocated and cornered even when browsing through different brands. Every single time I have been to Susan (probably a dozen), I have been accosted by über aggressive sales people. I understand their interest, but the approach is borderline frightening. I have been thisclose to purchasing clothing from Susan only to be turned off by their claustrophobic salespeople. There are plenty of stores that let their customers browse enjoyably, and Susan is definitely not one of them. The selection is good, but I will never, ever purchase from such leeches. I wish that the salespeople would forget about commission for a mere second to let the buyer mingle. Unfortunately, because of the nature of their customer service, I will never return.

I love this place– San Francisco is way behind on fashion and especially Asian and Japanese designers. That’s what i like about Susan’s and their sister store the Grocery store– they carry Japanese designers like Comme de Garçon and Yoji Yamamoto. I wish their shoe collection was a little more edgy but they know their clients and that is usually old rich women who dont dare wear the crazy shit Balenciaga, Prada, Lanvin and other designers do sometimes. I have gotten some great pieces here and the sales associate are good about not being too pushy– i hate pushy sales people.

It took them 5.3 seconds to have me trying on and lusting after $ 17,610 worth of Lanvin and Taher Chemirik, and they did it all without batting an eye, and without paying a bit of mind to the sweatpants and old sweater I walked in with. It took the woman next to me in the fitting room 2.3 seconds to walk in, try and buy the (I won’t say how much) Balenciaga edition dress hanging on the wall. The salesgirl Teresa was lovely and had a great eye for style. And Susan is clearly an institution with a tremendous ability to assemble a well curated selection of Lanvin, Prada, Marni, Balenciaga, Tom Binns, Taher Chemirik, and CDG, among others. That is probably why I am still dreaming about an outfit that costs multiple months paychecks.

Great store if you have money, real money. Nowhere else in the bay area can you find the pieces they have. Yes people are helpful to the point of overlly helpful but you don’t go there for the company but for the outstanding collections. Lorenzo appears a bit angry in his post but he may have some baggage with the company. The clothes must be great for him to give a five star review.

The sales staff is very friendly, they seem to know a lot about the product they have… Just look the part when you go, it being locked door and all… Just don’t spill your latte on those Balenciaga balloon dresses!

Theresa helps me make great choices…

Susan on Sacramento St in San Francisco is a very high end fashion store. Probably the only boutique in the city that carried Balenciaga bags when they were selling like hot cakes and everyone and their mother had their names on a waitlist of some kind at Neiman’s or Barneys in LA. The SF location also carries a good selection of Marni and Jil Sander.