For those of us who whose lives revolve around numbers that have considerably fewer zeroes, figures like those may sound outrageous. But there’s a good reason for all that wealth floating around.
It’s so there will be customers available to buy T-shirts that cost $91,500.
According to multiple reports, that’s the asking price at the Hermes store on New York’s Madison Avenue for what is being billed as the most expensive T-shirt in the world. The shirt is made of crocodile skin, which has outraged animal rights fans and probably didn’t make the crocodile who originally wore it all that happy, either.
It’s no business of mine what the stupendously rich do with their money, but a $91,500 T-shirt does raise a whole bunch of questions. Such as:
• Where do you wear it? To fancy cocktail parties? Your kid’s polo matches? To clean out your seven-car garage?
• With what do you wear it? Levi’s? Bermuda shorts? Crocs? I have enough trouble trying to figure out which cotton sweater goes with which khaki slacks. I don’t need my wife declaring, “Dee ELL, you can’t wear a crocodile T-shirt with gabardine slacks.”
• How to you wash it? After you’ve worn it a few times it’s bound to become a little gamy, unless you’ve had your sweat glands surgically removed.
“Sweetheart, have you seen my $91,500 T-shirt?”
“Oh, it’s in the dryer with the dish towels.”
But perhaps the best question came from my friend, Bob, who asked about the $91,500 T-shirt:
“What does it do?”
The answer, of course, is that it doesn't do anything, although wearing it probably would allow you to patronize establishments that have "no shoes, no shirt, no service" signs on the door. But then, so would a cotton T-shirt that costs $14.99 for a package of three.
So the next time I visit New York I probably won’t catch a cab to the Hermes store on Madison Avenue to buy a $91,500 T-shirt.
Because, like most things in New York City, there probably are guys on street corners right not selling knock-offs for $9.99.
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