Deferring to the wisdom of the native Americans, who counsel that before you criticise anyone, you had better walk a mile in his moccasins, the Mail & Guardian attempted to do just that with Jackie Selebi.
We went shopping for the soft leather shoes and other goodies convicted gangster and drug dealer Glenn Agliotti said he bought for the police national commissioner (and his wife and mistress).
First stop was the Surtee family store and its famous triumvirate: Grays, Hugo Boss and Ermegildo Zegna.
Surtees don’t sell fashion items. They are style merchants and live Coco Chanel’s immortal words: ‘Fashion fades, only style remains the same.†At these stores — with their A-to-Z of style (Aigner to Zegna) — one understands why, if Agliotti is to be believed, the national commissioner needed to augment his meagre government salary of just more than R1-million a year.
Style costs. Like the Canalli suit which, it being our lucky day, was on offer for a mere R26Â 000. No wonder the store was teeming with a throng of three people.
Ditto the shoes of soft leather and others of the not-so-soft variety, some of which had come down from R6Â 000 a pair to half the price.
Next stop Louis Vuitton. This is no place for window shoppers. The store teems with attractive guys (although some of them fasten all their jacket buttons, suggesting that a lecture in style might be in order). They don’t smile, and they fix their eyes on you, ensuring your clammy fingers don’t devalue their R39Â 000 25cm handbags. These collector’s items don’t have price tags. The tall, pretty boy, more of an accessory than any of the bags, reveals the price on request.
Keeping a wife and a mistress on a government salary could prove to be quite costly. The cheapest bag measures a mere 9,5cm and costs R2Â 000.
While nobody is suggesting that the Rolex-type watch he wore at the ANC conference in Polokwane was part of the largesse given to the commissioner by his nice friends in the pharmaceutical trade, he would have had to save for a long time to afford the examples we saw in Sandton, averaging R60Â 000 a piece.
At another gentleman’s store, a young man fixing his designer tie plays guide to the M&G team.
We are drawn to the pause area where glasses and two bottles of Chevas Regal beckon. ‘Is that real?†one of us enquires. ‘Yes it is, it’s a 12-year-old bottle. We have a 25-year-old bottle in there,†he says, pointing to a cellar, ‘but it’s only for people who are buying.â€
One feels one understands Selebi even better after treading in his footsteps. If the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, it’s clear why anyone would want to align themselves with the ascendant class.
Now you know why good parents tell their children to choose their friends carefully — you never know where they might go shopping.