Word: rodeos
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Beverly Hills, Calif., that capital of conspicuous consumption, Rodeo Drive rather suddenly has become one of the world's premier shopping streets. Ever since Gucci set up an outpost several years ago, tony merchants have been rushing to Rodeo, until now there is no place left. If all that glitters on Rodeo is not gold, it is most certainly platinum, silver or the chrome plating on the bumpers of a typical shopper's Rolls-Royce. Los Angeles Bureau Chief William Rademaekers strolled down the drive and returned with this report...
Outwardly, Rodeo Drive (pronounced Road-eh-oh) looks like any other shopping street in the fertile crescent of Beverly Hills. The buildings tend to be one-and two-story structures, pastel, neo-Spanish, neo-20th Century-Fox. Even the ficus trees lining the street seem to be part of a grand design by Potemkin. Still, the veteran spendthrift arriving on Rodeo Drive has a sense of déjà vu. No, the street does not possess the discreet elegance of Paris' Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré, the stylishness of Rome's Via Condotti or the hustling excitement of Manhattan's Fifth...
Iranians come and go on Rodeo, lavishing hundreds of thousands of petrodollars. They also see the street as a handsome investment area. Bijan Pakzad opened the store of his dreams on Rodeo Drive, a men's store so exclusive (or merely overpriced) that, says he, "the only proper customer is the man who earns $100,000 a month." He and his partner, another Iranian, Daryoush Mahboubi-Fardi, adorned their store with a $400,000 brass and glass staircase, a $75,000 crystal chandelier and a gaggle of other niceties totaling $ 1 million...
...Gucci's Rodeo shop had sales of $ 15 million last year and attracts as many as 2,000 people a day. They buy "necessities" as varied as $89 loafers and $200,000 diamond-and-pearl necklaces, and they exercise their eccentricities. One man arrives regularly in a white Rolls-Royce, carrying Dom Pérignon in a paper bag, sits down to drink with the help and customers, then drives away, usually without buying anything. Another buys Gucci presents for friends from an attache case stuffed with hundred-dollar bills; he also likes to drink champagne out of new Gucci loafers...
...Last year you told of the varsity library team grappling with World War I draft evaders. And there was some sort of fall rodeo up in Hanover, New Hampshire. In the dead of winter the startling eat squad made it through salad plate...