The Scarf Salesman

Zazou Owner Claudia Koch guest blogs about someone from our past… can you guess which sales manager she has dubbed The Scarf Salesman?

Extra points if you can spot Claudia herself in one of the old photos below.

Take it away Claudia.

He was a wild child of evangelist parents who was born in Algeria. A tough guy but one with an eye for extravagant beauty.

The Wild Man

His years on the road had taught him to be tough and frugal. He loved all of his meager possessions, having chosen each one for its beauty and utility. He was a guy on the road; he had to travel light.
Like many of his clan, he kept in his possession a scarf from the sacred city of Benaras. A simple rayon rectangle hand-stamped with sacred images, of a bright saffron color. At one time it was almost a gang color, signaling to the others of his clan that he was one of them.
He had a good nose for business. He bought a lot of Benaras scarves and sold them at various markets in the East and the Mediterranean in the summer.

Markets of the East

Mediterranean Beach Market

His pitch was that the scarf was not only beautiful and sacred to the Hindus, hand made in one of the oldest cities of the world, but of endless utility.
He went on to enumerate its many uses: turban, bathing suit wrap, table runner, mosquito repellent (when placed over the face of a sleeping person), as a “safi” chilem wrap (the chilem being the pipe of hashish and tobacco favored by the Hindi sadhus – see photo below), decorative wall hanging, curtain for doors in hot climates to keep out the bugs (a practice widely practiced in India the southern Mediterranean), and of course as a scarf.

Smoking Sadhu

With the end of his first youth, he moved back to the West and became a scarf salesman working in an English-speaking country. With his thick French attitude and snappy sales pitches – “semi-wild, semi-conservative” was a memorable one – he was extremely successful. The world of fashion required a different prattle but with the accent he was already there.

The Gate to High Fashion

He sold millions of scarves: silk scarves, rayon scarves, scarves with pompoms, scarves adorned by sequins or printed images. Big scarves, little scarves, square scarves, rectangular scarves.  Scarves that changed color in the light, scarves that were heavily embroidered, scarves with long beaded fringe.  Scarves to keep you warm, scarves to dress up your little black dress.
Finally the scarf salesman got tired of the scarves.

He retired to an exotic tropical country and lived happily ever after.

©Claudia Koch 2012