A fascinating part of my job at Neiman Marcus is working with our Foreign Buying offices on new shipments coming in. Specifically, I focus on shipments with wildlife products involved. You know, like fur coats, deerskin gloves, feather boas, snakeskin handbags and shoes, and a stuffed ostrich. Say what! Did I say ostrich? Nope, I wrote it, but you aren't seeing things. In fact, I have become known in the company as the wildlife expert. Sometimes I scare myself when I look at a exceptional handbag made from caiman and think, 'hmmm, nice Caiman crocodylus fuscus!'.
It was a while back when I first started working on the ostrich import. The full sized stuffed bird was being shipped to the Bergdorf Goodman store in New York and I wanted to make sure nothing went wrong. So I spent a good amount of time working with the vendor and our Paris office documenting the source of the bird. As planned, U.S. Fish and Wildlife cleared the shipment without a hitch and the bird went on display.
Fast forward six months or so and I just get word that the buyer wants to send the crazy bird back to France. I guess the market for large stuffed ostrich is not that great, because the thing didn't sell. No problem...exporting is my specialty and there is nothing quite like shipping a stuffed ostrich. Except for that time we shipped that stuffed zebra. Or how about those boxes with beetles and butterflies under the lid. Or that coat made from a Russian desman.
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