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Brown is the new black

Nick Foulkes

Wednesday, 12th March 2008

Nick Foulkes on the lure of credit cards

On careful reading I discovered that actually dear old Oscar had nothing to do with it, he had just been a Harrods account holder during the 1880s. But I have to say that I think the evocation of Oscar was apposite — he would have been tickled Tyrian Pink at being asked to carry a brown card (although he would probably only have used it in the country).

I was being asked to enter the world of the Harrods Amex holder and what a world it promised to be; a world of limited edition Philippe Starck for Baccarat chandeliers so big that they would reach from the ceiling to the carpet of my sitting-room; a world where people drank Krug Clos du Mesnil 1996; a world of gem-set Cartier watches that I could only afford to put around the wrist of Mrs Foulkes were I to sell the house in which I had just installed said Philippe Starck for Baccarat chandelier.

But there was more, much more. If I spent £5,000 (not just in one afternoon you understand but in one 12-month period), I would be awarded a night at the Ritz. At Christmas I would be invited to special shopping evenings, with fellow aesthetes and card-holders, where I would get VIP access to Santa’s Grotto and quadruple Harrods points every time I made a purchase — I don’t know what these points are, but I know I want them very, very much.

Moreover my spending would be analysed by a team of skilled demographers who would ascertain what sort of experience I would like to have. If I spent tens of thousands of pounds at Billionaire Couture on python-skin knickknacks and flamboyant eveningwear, I might be invited to have dinner with Flavio Briatore; then again, if I took a fancy to a white leather Valextra suitcase and purchased a suite of such luggage, I might be whisked to the Valextra factory to see the cult leather goods being made. Based on my shopping it is likely that I will get offered a tour of a supermarket ready-meal production plant. Then there were the special products that only Harrods Brown Amex customers were allowed to buy, videlicet an alligator briefcase from Valextra, special brown china and, sadly, not brown champagne but champagne in brown packaging. Best of all, I would be offered 10 per cent off Harrods aviation the next time I hired an aeroplane — that was the clincher.