Angelenos on the Eve: Feeling the Rush . . . and the Rain : In Beverly Hills, a Last Chance to Do Some Serious Shopping
What’s a little rain when you have important shopping to do? Like buying a half-dozen boxes of chocolates for the personnel at Neiman Marcus who wait on you throughout the year.
That’s what Tom Brown was up to Saturday as he stood in front of the truffle counter at the tony Beverly Hills department store. “I shop in here a great deal,” he said with a giggle.
Festively decked out in a full-length mink coat and red wool muffler, Brown, an executive at an interior design firm, estimated he would spend a total of $5,000 on Christmas Eve, buying such gifts as 10 dress shirts with matching socks and ties for one friend and a blue-and-white Oriental vase at Tiffany for another.
For merchants in Beverly Hills, Saturday’s bad weather brought disappointingly small crowds. It was not a day for browsing or window-shopping, and even the displays of furs and tuxedos, of gold-and-emerald jewelry at Van Cleef & Arpels and of silk scarfs at Gucci laid out like fields of wildflowers looked somewhat forlorn.
It was certainly not a day to admire the row of poinsettias dividing Rodeo Drive and lining the sidewalk or the elaborate decorative sleigh spanning Wilshire Boulevard.
It was, instead, a day to be serious.
At Mr. Guy, no one was looking at the $3,800 apres-ski jacket made up of three dozen teddy bears stitched together. But at nearby Hermes, attorney Stan Rubin of Westwood was spending $1,150 on a silk-and-wool blouse for his wife. The saleswoman told him it was a practical gift, which could be worn anywhere.
Francine Bardo, manager of Hermes, chuckled over the spending habits of last-minute shoppers. “They are more generous today,” she said. “They have no time to go elsewhere.”
Happy with his purchase, Rubin smiled at the price. “I might have to take out another mortgage on my house,” he said.
At Bottega Veneta, Joe Filippelli, a Brentwood businessman, fingered $800 soft leather handbags, looking for the right ones with which to surprise his wife and mother-in-law. “Aren’t these the most beautifully constructed bags you ever saw?” he asked.
Although women definitely seemed outnumbered in the stores, not all the 11th-hour gifts were intended for them. At Neiman’s, Michael Yedor of Beverly Hills was toting several shopping bags containing outfits for his 13-month-old daughter that come with matching teddy bears and a $175 helium balloon for his 9-year-old son. The balloon is operated by remote control.
“He’s got a lot of remote control things--submarines and boats and cars. He likes fast things,” said Yedor, the chief executive officer of Telesis Airborne Group.
Resolving a Crisis
Other fortunate children were the three sons, ages 9, 13 and 17, of banker Dick Keller, who drove up from Manhattan Beach to the Sharper Image on Little Santa Monica Boulevard, which had just the right pool table for the family’s workout room.
Inside the store, more crowded than most on Saturday, Mary Lou Cardone had just survived a little pre-holiday crisis. By mistake, the cowhide briefcase she had ordered for her son had been sold to someone else, forcing her to make do with another style made of black leather.
“Some grains are just better for certain personalities,” fretted Cardone, a West Los Angeles receptionist. “I just know my children.” But she brightened when store manager Bob Ischinger offered to reduce the price.
Despite the prevalence of shoppers with a mission, Rodeo Drive is never totally devoid of tourists, of course.
One of them, Michael Lakin, 11, of New York City, emitted sighs of pleasure as he stretched out on a $2,295 body machine at Hammacher Schlemmer designed to simulate Japanese-style shiatsu massage. “It’s tough when you go to school. You need something to relieve the stress,” joked his father, Danny, a shoe manufacturer. They passed up the device.
And Lou Meade of Fountain Valley, not exactly a tourist but not a late shopper either, found herself at Giorgio, where a fire was roaring and eggnog was being served to customers looking at beaded evening bags and sweat shirts marked down to $25.
“The house is full of people,” Meade confided. “I had to get away.”
