The reborn Faberge has decided that the rich don’t shop online like the rest of us.

At the public-facing site launched by Faberge’s new owners, gone are such bourgeois trappings like buttons, prices, adding items to your cart, or really the ability to do much of anything. For the hoi polloi, that is.

To see the catalog, you have to schedule a time to speak with a Faberge rep. Only at the end of that conversation are you issued a client login to the rest of the site. You arrange a chat by clicking around the site until “Discover More” pops up on the right, which you then click upon. Indeed, Faberge.com slips on that fine line in user interface design between the intriguing and the annoying. It’s also entirely Flash-base. How gauche.

After online perusal, jewel-toting employees can whisk to your abode for an in-person showing. Home delivery, and the company’s flagship Geneva store, will comprise the entirety of the company’s retail operations. Is this streamlined approach to pushing encrusted baubles a viable way for a luxury brand to survive in our new, deadly, economic climate? We’ll see. Just don’t expect them to add Paypal any time soon. Faberge [Official Site] Faberge Asks Rich to Surf Web for $7 Million Brooches [Bloomberg]

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