David Shamouelian believes he has tapped into what he thinks
is a sure-fire marketing tool: 4,000 years of Jewish mysticism.
“How do you explain this? You walk into the store and want
to buy a blouse for yourself, but you end up buying a dress. Why? Because there
is internal energy in the clothes,” said Shamouelian, whose clothing company, Sharagano,
has signed an exclusive deal with the Los-Angeles-based Kabbalah Center to
market clothes using the once-sacred symbols of the Kabbalah.
“The product is drawing you to it, not the other way
around,” he said. “That is what we learned from the Kabbalah 4,000 years ago at
the time of Abraham.”
Shamouelian, 24, hopes that supernatural forces will draw
shoppers straight to his new clothing line inspired by the 72 names of God and
the teachings of the Kabbalah Center, which offers courses in Jewish mysticism
and spirituality.
He has already released the first of a series of designs:
T-shirts inscribed with the Hebrew letters lamed, alef and vav, one of the 72
divine names in Kabbalistic teachings. The shirts, retailing from $32 to $40,
will be available through SharaganoParis.com and 72namesofGod.com, with all
proceeds going to the Kabbalah Center.
The center teaches that “these three letters give you the
power to conquer your ego…. Simply focus your eyes on the letters, then
visualize destroying your ego,” says an advertisement for a white baby-T tank
top.
The creative spark for the clothing line came from a video
made by the one superstar who in so many ways defines the word ego — Madonna.
The singer has studied at the Kabbalah Centre for six years,
and in the video for “Die Another Day” — the title song for the latest James
Bond movie — she has lamed, alef and vav tattooed on her arm
Rabbi Yehuda Berg, who is author of the book, “The Power of
Kabbalah,” said he hopes that Kabbalah is going to have an even “wider reach”
as a result of the new clothing line.
We want to “bring it out to the masses,” said Shamouelian,
who was born in Iran but moved to New York when he was 2. He became involved
with the Kabbalah Centre 14 years ago. The center’s other famous participants
include Sandra Bernhard, Naomi Campbell and Guy Ritchie.
The center has already done well with another fashion
statement, the Red String, sometimes called Rachel’s String.
A spokeswoman for the center said the string has been
wrapped around Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem and is purportedly imbued with the
biblical matriarch’s energy, protecting the wearer against the negative
influences of the evil eye. The Kabbalah Center sells a packet of six strings
for $26.
Celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Rosie O’Donnell,
Roseanne and, of course, Madonna have been known to wear the bracelet — an
attempt to ward off the evil lens of paparazzi, perhaps? — Mica Rosenberg,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
