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She was a 25-year-old anthropology student, living in a mud-floored
Peruvian hut, studying marketplace culture. It was 1976. She never
expected that a gift she found in a Cuzco market would change her
life. But it did. “It’s a classic kitchen table mail-order story,” Annie Hurlbut says with a laugh. When Annie brought that chestnut brown alpaca sweater home to Canaan Farm in Tonganoxie, Kansas, things began to happen fast. Biddy Hurlbut, Annie’s mother, loved her fiftieth birthday present, declaring it “the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.” All of Biddy’s friends wanted one, and Biddy persuaded a buyer at Halls, an upscale store in Kansas City, Missouri, to place an order. Annie returned to Peru with $4,000 from a cashed-in life insurance policy. She was suddenly in the sweater business. Visiting hilltop villages and locating the best artisan knitters, Annie filled that first order for thirty-five sweaters. Then she filled another
for Henri Bendel in New York City, and then another…
Read more
In the Fall issue of La Vie Claire Magazine |
