Welcome back to those of you who were
here last week, and a warm hello to the newbies! Blog Entry #2! Clearly I have
a lot of stuff around our apartment that I don’t want to do.
Sadly, this entry also coincides with
the week I am breaking up with Project Runway. (At least I hope I am.) Gone is the glory of the Bravo years; I need to skedaddle before they're making good use of an accessory wall courtesy of Pajama Jeans. I’ve
grown weary of manufactured drama and personalities created for auditions. I cannot
allow myself to put aside an hour of my time, wait breathlessly to see what
comes down the runway, and be rewarded with:
Life is too short, that is too fugly,
and this would not be a smart(y) use of my time. I loved that show with all my
heart, and this is what I get for it: a Valentine’s Day dress to wear to work
under a street lamp.
I had meant this entry to be a one-off
about a fashion issue that’s been a thorn in my paw lately, but then I thought
– why would anyone who doesn’t know me (and some of the people who think they
do) – want to listen to me sound off on this? There are so many fools out there
foaming at the mouth on every possible subject – why add to the noise?
With my hand on my heart, I promise
never to sound off on topics without having the credentials to back up that
opinion. There’s already plenty of hot air floating around out there. An opinion
is just an opinion, but I (usually) shut up unless I can add something of
substance. So as for my background in fashion, it’s laid out right here:
I’ve worn clothes since shortly after I
was born.
Not enough for you?
In the early years my outfits were
picked out for me, but as I grew older, like most kids, my personal taste began
to assert itself, and – while restricted by access to a bank account, the
choices a small town can offer, and limitations placed by parents whose tastes
were more mainstream than mine (a lot more mainstream) – I began my personal fashion
journey.
Time passed, it happened that one of my
New York cousins was being bar mitzvahed, and I needed a dress. If you know the
Miranda Priestly speech from The Devil Wears Prada about cerulean,* you
understand when I say that the Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian influence had finally
trickled down to my hometown, and I picked a kid’s version of that trend. (I
cannot remember why; heaven knows I did NOT know YSL!)
While in Manhattan we visited the
Museum of Modern Art and someone pointed out a Piet Mondrian. (“Look, your
dress!”) I stood, I stared, and…something clicked.
That moment, that painting, that dress
– a whole new world opened up for me. From that time, dresses weren’t just
pretty; I started gulping down books by and about fashion, fashion designers,
art and artists.
Careening forward here like a drunk
driver, one day I finally found myself living in New York City, filling out an
application for a sales position at Saks Fifth Avenue. My thought was they must
need Christmas sales help, and when your college major is essentially tap
dancing that’s pretty much what you need to do. I mean why not, right?
Well, I will tell you why not. Saks
employees have to look like they shop there. My outfits – including my
interview outfit – looked like I marched into thrift shops and sang Hit Me
With Your Best Shot (which was not far from the case). My name was called,
I sat opposite an elegant woman at a desk and…silence. Finally, “Did those
shoes come with that skirt?”
That day’s ensemble was a black
turtleneck/long sleeved leotard with black tights (dance class that
afternoon!), a black skirt featuring a large chevron rainbow, and wooden
platform shoes that had elastic rainbows across the toes to hold them on my
feet. It gives me a migraine just thinking about it, but I cannot apologize for
all wardrobe choices made in the 70s.
Back to the interview. No, these items
weren’t even bought in the same state. The next thing I knew I had a job as a
personal shopper at Saks, and – sit down – it came with clothes (and a lot of
really great stories with really big movie stars, but you have to come back for
those). Eventually I was part of the team that styled the store mannequins and
windows, and some time down the line I left for another, less wonderful, job.
(Nights when I pound my head against the wall screaming why why why, I have to remind myself how
excited I was when Saks raised my salary to $11,500, which was really low in
those days, too. Those jobs weren’t held in as high regard as they are now, and
I wanted to be able to shop not only at Saks, but at grocery stores.)
Farther down my path I found myself
working in the publishing industry; doing publicity for various books. (Again –
more great stories! Big, big stars! You need to be here!) One was written by a
really great guy named Axel Madsen, and while we went around to various media
appointments we discussed his next project; a book he was writing about Coco
Chanel. Hello – it’s still not often I get to discuss fashion history with
someone who stays awake, so we really enjoyed the rest of his book tour. I
happened to know some really obscure stories about Chanel – like Mamie Van
Doren obscure (she designed the dresses for Mamie’s ‘Aqua Velva’ commercials!),
was even able to cite source material, and am proud to report I made the
acknowledgements section of a book on one of my idols (no, not Mamie, although
that would have been extremely cool, too).
Oh, what the hell:
(I
pop up in quite a few books over the years – both in the acknowledgements and
in the editorial content – but that’s in blogs yet to come. So now you’ll
either really want to subscribe or be really over me in a big way.)
I worked hard, rose in the ranks, worked with major celebrities (yes, you
guessed it, more great stories!), and eventually opened my own boutique PR
firm. ('Boutique' - that's French for 'try and find me.') I wanted
something…something…else though (by this time I really loathed big
celebrities), so I decided to get a Masters degree so I could really explore my
greatest passion: Information. Knowledge is, after all, power!
So much to everyone’s surprise – no one's more than mine – I was now doing
research for international banking firms, which meant that I now could afford
(well, almost) the fashion I had been wishing for all those years. After all
that yearning, though, I found I was happier throwing my own ‘finds’ together
rather than buying someone else’s predetermined looks. (I only wish I had also
‘found’ the secret to credit cards – there’s interest accruing! – at the same
time.)
So years passed, my fashion style began to get more focused, I
accumulated more pieces in my closet, accrued more interest (%) and interests,
but life happened and fashion (and the rest of the world) had to chug along
without me for a bit. (Some of those stories are only great in retrospect.) One
night Project Runway popped up on my TV and renewed my love of sewing
and design (and backbiting), and I got the push I needed to get back into the
swim.
Fun aside: One night, just when I was rejoining the world, my husband
(yeah, there's a Mr. Smarty Pants) and I were at the theater, and as I was
walking down a staircase – very Norma Desmond – I noticed a man who looked
really familiar smiling up at me. I’m really bad at matching names to faces so
I had to mentally scramble but by the time I hit the bottom step I realized who
that smiling face was – Malan Breton, a former contestant on Project Runway,
now one of the top luxury clothing designers in the world. I mean…maybe that
was him. I really am bad at faces, so that guy could also have been someone I
spilled something on at some long forgotten social disaster. I decided to
circle around and see if this could possibly…well, the cut and the fabric of
his suit was calling card enough for me, and sure enough Smiling Guy was
Malan Breton, who – after I summoned up the nerve to introduce myself – told me
he had smiled at me “because (I was) so chic.”
Well.
My husband tells me that after that I was walking into walls and traffic,
but all I remember is a bunch of foolish stutters, staring at his business
card, and the thought that remains with me to this day: This makes up for all
those times my mother screamed at me, “You’re not leaving the house dressed
like that!”
Fast forward to today, when I’m sewing at Mood Fabrics (I made that coat
– even the leather parts!), meeting designers I rooted for on Project Runway,
and just generally having more adventures.
Despite my personal cheering section, I don’t have any dreams of going on
the show (I am way too old and waaaaaay too pokey), and I don’t harbor any
dreams of starting my own design firm (way too broke and way too lazy). I just
love the creative process, love having an idea and then - Poof! - the clothes, and
most of all I love having a better understanding of what I’ve been reading
about all these years: how a designer garment (as opposed to ready-to-wear) is
constructed. (Couture being a highly overused word.) What makes a Chanel jacket
a jacket by the House of Chanel, as opposed to a Chanel-style jacket? How close
can I get to making a fairly decent one? And if I can make jokes about the
clothes designers are producing…can I come up with better?
In addition to all this, I live in one of the fashion capitals of the
world, and you better believe I take advantage of it in any way I possibly can.
I see every fashion-related exhibition, documentary, lecture, and runway show I
possibly can.
I take classes, workshops, seminars, webinars – you name it. I’ve
purchased an actual Project Runway garment so I could turn it inside out to see
what actually happens when you’ve got the blink of an eye to design and
construct something to send down a runway before a panel of industry
heavyweights (or whomever the producers foist on viewers that week) as judges
on an international television show. I still read and collect all the
books (even paper dolls!), rip pages out of the magazines with hopes of either
purchasing, adapting for my closet, or railing about what a rip-off that
particular garment/collection is (a topic for another day).
Fashion is my passion, or at least one of them. I’m
so incredibly lucky to be living in New York City, where so much of it either
originates or comes to visit, and in the age of the internet, where I can dig
out what I can’t get to personally. I’d love to share that luck with you.
“Life is a banquet, and most poor bastards are starving to death,”
taught Mame Dennis.
Grab a plate, and meet me at the dessert cart.
*
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