The Evangelist

Back in '04, I posted about Shopping Sherpas. I'm always on the lookout for them, and they are truly hard to find.

A few weekends ago, K. and I headed down to Soho to The Original Leather Store. They used to have a store on the UWS, but it closed about 18 months ago. At their closing sale, I picked up a great Seraphin shearling at a shockingly good price. In addition to its style, it's a great quality coat. In fact, every time I have walked into any other leather store, the salespeople have remarked on what a great product Seraphin makes. (Several of them have explained to me that Seraphin is the manufacturer for Hermes leather coats.)

I'd put some wear on the Seraphin and it needed some minor repairs. So we headed down to the Soho store as part of our weekend errands.

I should confess at this point that any day of "running errands in Soho" is usually our great excuse to drop into a few favorite places. Most frequently, we find ourselves drawn inexorably to Sullivan Street Bakery for a slice of their special Roman style pizza. If it's winter, we can usually be counted on to be magically transported to MarieBelle for some of their high quality heroin...I mean crack cocaine...I mean hot chocolate, for goodness sake. But it might as well mean some other more devilish substance because MarieBelle hot chocolate is (to date myself and quote the long defunct Crazy Eddie) INSANE.

Given the warm weather, we just did Sullivan Street Bakery and managed to avoid MarieBelle. Ah, Sullivan Street, how much do we love thee? If you are a foodie and want to get a sense of why we love it so much go here and click on the link that says "Pornography". These are people who really understand K. and I.

So, the main point of this piece is really our experience at The Original Leather Store. Sated by Sullivan Street, we went to drop off my coat for repairs. But once there, we fell under the spell of Indira Heffner. An exotic woman of West Indian heritage with cafe au lait skin and butterscotch tresses, she engaged us immediately with her extremely sociable manner. Without being pushy - or even directly engaged in selling - she led us on a romp through their leather collection. It was fun trying on the various things she found to show us. Some of it was just to goof around trying things on we weren't ever likely to wear in real life. OL sells to many celebs and rock 'n rollers, so some of it is more over the top than you or I might desire. Some of it was to appreciate the workmanship of OL's own line of goods, which is quite high.

We must have hung out with Indira for over an hour. She was charming, we had fun, and...it may not surprise you to learn (although it certainly did surprise us at the time) that we walked out of OL with more than one new acquisition.

So I am officially adding Indira Heffner to my list of NYC Shopping Sherpas: those amazing folks who can help you find the things you want as well as the things you didn't even know you wanted.