This was fascinating. Bunny wasn’t telling me a thing I hadn’t seen for myself, but she was defining patterns that hadn’t registered on me before. Suddenly the whole clothes thing was starting to make sense.
“So what kind of image do I project?”
“Well, since you ask, right now you look like one of two things: either someone who’s so rich and successful that he doesn’t have to care what other people think, or like a kid who doesn’t know how to dress. Here at the Bazaar, they know you’re successful, so the merchants jump to the first conclusion and drag out every gaudy item they haven’t been able to unload on anyone else and figure if they price it high enough, you’ll go for it.”
“A sucker or a fool,” I murmured. “I don’t really know what image I want, but it isn’t either of those.”
“Try this one on for size. You’re a magician for hire, right? You want to look well off so your clients know you’re good at what you do, but not so rich that they’ll think you’re overcharging them. You don’t want to go too conservative, because in part they’re buying into the mystique of magic, but if you go too flashy you’ll look like a sideshow charlatan. In short, I think your best bet is to try for ‘quiet power.’ Someone who is apart from the workaday crowd, but who is so sure of himself that he doesn’t have to openly try for attention.”
“How do I look like that?”
“That’s where Bunny comes in,” she said with a wink. “If we’re agreed on the end, I’ll find the means. Follow me.”
With that, she led me off into one of the most incredible shopping sprees I’ve ever taken part in. She insisted that I change into the first outfit we bought: a light blue open-necked shirt with cream-colored slacks and a matching neck scarf. Markie protested that she had liked the pretty clothes better, but as we made our way from stall to stall, I noticed a change in the manner of the proprietors. They still seemed a little nervous about our presence, but they were bringing out a completely different array of clothes for our examination, and several of them complimented me on what I was wearing … something that had never happened before.