Word: rodeos
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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...
Comedian Red Skelton, who shops there, calls Rodeo a "nice, friendly street ?but too expensive." But many Rodeo customers spend without even asking prices, sometimes because they do not speak English. Recently, a young Japanese rushed into Hermès, pointed in quick succession to a $1,000 lambskin jacket, an $850 suede coat, three silk robes at $700 each, five blouses at $350 apiece and many other goodies. While salespeople totaled all his purchases ($8,000), he dashed out to do more shopping. He returned shortly with new luggage to hold his purchases, then dashed off to catch...
Movie and TV stars, including Barbra, Raquel, Zsa Zsa and Cher, trek regularly to Rodeo Drive; but most customers are not well known, just rich. On a recent afternoon, Edna Weiss, a restaurant supplier's wife, drove up in her birthday present, a 1978 black Rolls-Royce, to do some shopping. Her schedule: a fitting at Gucci, up the block to Courrèges to catch the sale, then perhaps to Knights for a gift. Says Weiss: "I'm very chauvinistic about Rodeo. I've been to all the major shopping centers in the world, and there's nothing that...
There is a long list of retailers waiting to get onto Rodeo, and some pay up to $300,000 to buy out a lease. Since 1973, rents have tripled, to $3 or $5 per sq. ft., to the delight of such property owners as Greta Garbo and Health Food High Priest Gayelord Hauser. Tenants often must agree as well to pay a portion of property taxes and a percentage of profits...