Marc Jacob
I started my life on the backside of a European bovine. Grazing from trough to trough fattened by the chemically enhanced feed prescribed for such an end product of my conception. Once removed from the animal I am stripped, torn and battered into submission by a myriad of machines, men and sometimes children. I find myself dipped and drained until I am the ordered fashion colour of the season. The colour of 2008 was white.
Once my desired hue is achieved I am packaged for delivery to the factory where I will be cut. Stitched, glued and ultimately crafted, I eventually resemble the fashion piece for which I was intended. On leaving the factory I am accompanied by friends of the same and similar design; our colour variant being our only unique feature.
At the store I am unpacked. Bright and ornate lights glisten everywhere and I am but one of many beautiful objects lining the wall. I sit quietly on the shelf day after day longing for the touch of approval. A woman, long blonde hair, slender and smelling of French perfume wanders in under the crystal chandelier. She is my first touch. Her manicured fingers pry me from my resting place. She caresses my exterior before prying at my inner beauty. She splits me looking at my inner compartments pulling and tugging to judge my size. My name blazons before her; Marc Jacob. She sits me to rest back on the shelf dislodged from my merchandised position. I am adjusted and returned to my intimate liaison with a cashmere scarf.
The first male touch was feminine. His hand is tender, nails are short and well kept and the scent of musk with fresh vanilla pod linger from his moisturiser. He too opens me to examine my uses. Slit by slit testing my ability to retain his precious plastic. I am placed in a pocket. Dim. Light is replaced by his cardiac rhythm. A measured and constant pound pressed against my firm cold exterior. I am removed and placed in his trouser pocket. The polyester lining makes me itch but my fit seems pleasurable to the thigh on which I am pressed. Perhaps I have found my match? “How’s it going to day, how can I help?” the shop assistant enquires. “Fine thanks, just looking” is the reply of the inquisitive consumer. With that tried tested enquiry of “Can I help you” my potential new owner returns me to the temporary home on the shelf.
Over the next few days, then weeks I am prodded and poked, split and slit to judge my appropriateness. I am moved about the store from my humble relationship with cashmere scarf to a torrid affair with a silk tie. Eventually after completing my cycle I am returned to the comfortable position on the shelf. This time I have a sale ticket adorning the label peeking from beneath. I am cheapened and thus the touch I receive diminishes in its appreciation of my beauty from the surveyors of fine things.
It was May when he entered the store amidst a burst of gaiety. They were obviously all homosexuals; far too well dressed and flamboyant to be straight Londoners. They all sauntered around the store pretending to pay attention to the inanimate objects hung, folded and placed in their specific location. “I saw this in Harvey Nichols, I saw this in Harrods echoed around the store. The tall lanky one removed garments from their carefully selected position so that he may parade to and from the fitting cubicle getting the opinion of his fellow shoppers. One was less overt than the other two. Calm and quiet as he glanced and caressed the objects of beauty. He comes to admire me. He stands, pauses and reaches for my touch. He, like the many before, delves into the depths of my soul while wondering if I will accommodate all that he desires.
In little time and without fan fare I am taken and placed upon the counter where the shop person rapes me of my covering and places me in a white plastic bag. The exchange of notes is the prelude to my journey beyond the chandelier. I can no longer see the other two of my new owners’ companions but their cackle follows us out the store so one can only assume they too ensued.
Soon after leaving the store the plastic bag which I have found to be my home for a short period is discarded. I am thrust open on the streets of London
Over the next few months I am most pleased with my use and the acquisition of new and wonderful plastic friends within me. The notes that come and go I offer no consistency. While some are crisp like a fresh apple there are those who have been crushed and crinkled beyond recognition and they smell like their only possible experiences, unpleasant.
As time passes I am taken on many journeys. While I cannot see journey itself the smell and sights at completion of each sojourn educates my senses. Salty sea air to freshly cut grass, my aromatic intelligence and awareness increases and I am delighted.
In the July I find myself in the dark for a long period of time, 26 hours in fact, obviously a journey of epic proportion. Undesirably I am squashed between sweaters, socks and underwear and I find myself sharing the immediate space with the likes of a toothbrush, razor and other bathroom implements, company far below the standing which I had become accustomed. I did strike an accord with the Isimiaki fragrance that too accompanied me in the darkness; however, I was not impressed at my relegation.
On release from our prison the stench of transport and pollution has been replaced by clean air. People looked different not nearly as refined but certainly much happier. People hugged and tears stroked the smiles as they embraced each other, jovially telling stories. A family in the corner hugs each other in silence, the flight arrival of their expectant family member intensifying their sombre mood.
A coffee was my first purchase. “A long black please” he asked and retrieves a card from between a slit. He pays the small little man behind the oversized coffee machine that spits and hisses in between him wiping excess milk away. I am rightfully returned to my favourite position in the breast pocket. An hour and half later after a short trip we arrived at my owners’ destination of choice; a far cry from the ornamental elegance of the store from which I was brought in Kensington London. Hamilton Hamilton
As time has passed the appreciation of my beauty has weigned as too did my distain for my current location. The lustre that once contained many wondrous possibilities has crazed, turned grey and can no longer boast superiority to those contained within. Glue is disintegrating leaving me to look dishevelled and common. Dirt from the entry and exit of the plastic occupants stain my once virginal interior. The respect I previously commanded has been lost. I am strewn onto car seats, old bags and a plethora of locations not fit for an item of my lineage.
Not three weeks ago I found myself making love to inexpensive floor coverings of a vehicle of the mass production. Obviously my well being was far less important than the pungent waft of Mac Donald’s that filled our chariot home and filled the stomach of my owner as he left the taxi gorging himself. Usually I am retrieved and clumsily placed in a pocket before I am heaved onto the bedroom floor. On this most recent of occasions my existence was entirely ignored and I was left to fend for myself on the floor of a taxi nestled beneath a seat.
Once left alone I was pushed and kicked about with total disregard. Heels of various heights constructed of synthetic material containing feet stained from attempts at an olive complexion for the summer squeezed beyond recognition into unnatural shapes . Men’s’ filthy 1997 style shoes of varying shades of black with the contrast of white foot coverings cavorting at me from beneath their denim leg attire while I lay staring at the underside of the drivers bottom.
I eventually see the light in two days. While cleaning the abhorrent mess left by the occupants of my horrific night I am sucked by a long cylindrical tube and examined by a new admirer. He prods and pocks at my innards, pulling in and out various cards. I am dropped at a new location where again I am examined. Now I am placed in a clear plastic bag and placed in a plastic tray with most despicable creatures of ugly. How has this happened? How have I experienced such a turn in fortune?
My demise can only be expected. While I may hold the embossed logo of Marc Jacob, a name synonymise with style and elegance, I am only a wallet. I have ended up in the rear end of the world, while I may no longer be on the backside of a European cow, I have travelled full circle; smelly dirty and destined for the ruin of the butchers block.
