Taki Taki

High life | 1 March 2018

The Queen and Groucho Marx have it; Karl Marx and Anna Wintour not so much

Gstaad

They have busy eyes and the set of their mouths is that of a hungry carnivore. Their hands are always working, stroking, exaggerating. They’re salesmen to the rich and famous and flog them trinkets, pictures and dresses — and at times even people. They gush like no Hollywood agent ever did, and once upon a time I used to feel very sorry for them. That was in the days when they tried to sell antiques to the Saudis, who called the priceless classic stuff second-hand furniture, early Eisenhower Hilton Hotel-style being the gold standard for camel drivers back then. It still is. Yep, this alpine village gets them all — salespeople that is, and at times I still pity them. A Christie’s man brought a Chinese individual up to the club. The Chinese man was dressed in pink and looked awfully silly. I told the Christie’s man that no money was worth the humiliation of being an escort to such a ridiculous sight, and the Christie’s man said that it was easy for me to pass judgment: ‘You don’t have to work for a living.’ That shut me up for the rest of the day — or week rather — but now I see clearly why digging ditches is as honourable a profession as one can aspire to. (And a hell of a lot healthier, to boot.) So you’ve got Dior and Pucci, Ralph Lauren and Gucci, Hermès, Prada and Cartier — and the two biggies, Sotheby’s and Christie’s — all aiming at a few fat people with very fat bank accounts. It’s a bit like Britain and Germany and Russia trying to elbow each other out of the way in the Balkans prior to the first world war. There’s very little meat left on the carcass for the hovering vultures. But now the vultures are the ones that are being picked.

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