LET THEM EAT CHINCHILLA

Benjamin Stein

If you agree with Marie Antoinette about letting them eat cake, you’ll love Bijan Pakzad. Bijan (he chooses not to use his last name) is an Iranian immigrant, the son of a hugely successful steel manufacturer in pre-Khomeini Iran. Now an American citizen, he is the proprietor of what he insists are the most expensive men’s clothing stores in the world.

The first of his stores is just six and a half years old. It stands on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, on the site of what was once a parking lot. The second store will open this July in the lobby of the St. Regis-Sheraton Hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, in the lowly quarters that formerly housed Gucci.

You can get a good idea of the mixture of publicity-mindedness and snobbery which come so naturally to Bijan when you learn that his stores are open to shoppers by appointment only. According to Bijan, a cheerful, chain-smoking, diminutive man of forty-three, this policy ensures that “clients interested in quality only” come in. Bijan does not want tourists in white shoes pawing the merchandise. He wants the kind of people who “already have fifteen tuxedoes and twenty white jackets,” people who will “appreciate the Old World quality that I alone offer.”

“Quality” and “Old World” are terms that Bijan uses often. He has been a designer for fifteen years, and is careful to distinguish himself from other designers, who, he says, create an item of clothing and then make thousands of copies of it, which they sell around the world. Bijan makes only one of his creations in each size, and in that way, he says, he maintains quality. He is not at all concerned about creating items that appeal to the ordinary working stiff. “My problem,” he says, “is this: I have clients who are very, very smart. Businessmen, presidents of South American countries, royalty. Very, very smart people. How else did they get where they are? I have to work like hell to maintain my quality for these people.”

To help maintain his Old World standards of craftsmanship and service, Bijan has designed a number of unusual items. Some of them might seem more like publicists’ dreams than like real clothing or accessories, but Bijan says no. For example, in addition to his $400 cotton shirts, his $1,500 cashmere suits, his $1,800 alligator shoes, his $50,000 mink bedspreads, and his $300 scarves, Bijan offers a chinchilla bedspread suitable for a king-size bed. It goes for $98,000, no haggling allowed. “This is a very special bedspread,” Bijan says. “It took 2,400 chinchillas, and their skins all had to match, so we had to throw out many skins. The lining is handmade silk, from China. Just the lining cost $4,000 and took sixty days to make.

“It is something very conservative, really only made for people who have taste and who need a chinchilla bedspread,” Bijan says with a perfectly straight face. He says he sells about twelve each year; in just one week he sold five mink, bedspreads to a French helicopter manufacturer, who uses them as lap robes in his private Gulfstream jet.

Along the same line is Bijan’s golden gun, created with the cooperation of Colt Firearms. Bijan fashioned the gold chamber and leather grip, then put his name on the gun and packaged it in a mink holster and a crystal box. “I designed this gun,” he says, “because the head of one of the royal families of Europe said to me, ‘Bijani, design something special. I am tired of giving my friends Rolls-Royces.’ So, I designed this gun, which is probably not for everyone, but it is so ugly it is beautiful.” The revolver goes for $10,000 and is guaranteed to function as a lethal weapon.

Bijan also makes camel’s-hair sport coats from real camel’s hair ($1,500), boots with chinchilla cuffs ($5,000), raincoats with mink linings ($14,000), cotton poplin umbrellas ($150), silk neckties ($100), and pinstripe suits of virgin wool, handtailored in Carrara, Italy ($1,300).

Bijan insists that these memorable and strictly custom-made items for the careful Rodeo Drive and Fifth Avenue shopper are conservative. “You see,” he says, “on the raincoat, I put the mink inside, and that is what makes it conservative.”

While Bijan explained his sales technique to a visitor, a group of tourists from Texas appeared at the door in white vinyl shoes. They told the woman doorkeeper that they had heard about Bijan and wanted to take a look. They did not have an appointment. Bijan allowed them to come in, and they pawed the merchandise for a while, whistling softly, then left.

Bijan has run advertisements listing approximately 170 of the bestdressed men in the world, with the implication that they all shop at Bijan. Included on the list are Ronald Reagan (although no one can remember when he was in or what he bought), Barry Manilow, and Charles Aznavour, as well as royal figures in the Arab world and several sports stars.

In partnership with his fellow Iranian immigrant Daryoush Mahboubi (“Mr. Mahboubi” or “Dar,” as the six well-groomed young saleswomen at Bijan call him), Bijan owns the Beverly Hills real estate his store is on, as well as a small and expensive shopping center across the street. He takes from $12 million to $13 million a year out of his shop, and his markup is about 130 percent, which he can get, he says, because he has such high-quality items. Seventy percent of his customers are Americans. Bijan says he has four customers per day, which works out to $9,615.38 per customer. “To shop here,” he likes to say, “you should earn a minimum of $100,000 a month.”