This is a Man's World...

Junya Wantanabe RTW Fall 2010

It's no fun being stuck in bed after very uncomfortable gum surgery, although I must say, I got a kick out of my periodontist. He not only called me out on my Pucci rain boots, but he actually paused to name the original composer of one of my buddha bar tracks whilst suturing. But alas, on to yogurt and toradol...

Has deliria set in? Because as I surf through all the men's fall 2010, ready-to-wear fashion shows I can't help but wish, like a little tiny bit, I was a man. What really did me in was that picture of Lapo in front of the Pitti posted by The Sartorialist. How hard can that be? Pink shirt, Burgundy tie, funky plaid blazer, staple jeans and grunge-grey boots. Done. Face it boys, you have no excuse to be dressed badly. It's so easy breezy!

Then I turn to my closet and cringe. Being a girl is definitely fun, if you like that omg-i-have-nothing-to-wear feeling that creeps up every time you swing open your closet door; tears and ice cream binges ensuing. From accessories to shoes, to jewellery and lingerie, to dresses and skirts, tops and jumpers, jackets and blazers, blouses and leggings, and everything in between- can you blame me for wanting to put on a pair of nudie jeans and start doing bench presses? Sure sure, my adversaries will say that men's fashion has come a long way in terms of experimentation and variety, to which the ever-growing metrosexual movement can stake its claim. Yet, truth be told, all you have to do is browse through some of these men's fashion shows (well, maybe not Galliano's) to see that for a man, a suit is a suit is a suit is a suit.

Paul Smith RTW Fall 2010

What piece in a woman's wardrobe is so essential that she could wear it all day every day, make small inexpensive changes to it as the season's do, and still manage to be the envy of all her friends when she walks into a room? Every girl knows that wearing the same bag over and over again will bring her no accolade and that there is no greater marker of inadequacy than fading into the background dressed in jeans and a black top, holding a martini glass. The staple theory just does not work for us girls; first, there are way too many staples and second, if you cling to them, well, you know what happens, you get the martini-blending effect.

Sigh. Maybe thats what I should do; just stop worrying about the opposite sex and make myself a nice french martini. No one said liquid diets didn't have their perks...

The Hermès Belt Fund

With all this talk of phone companies allegedly scamming their guilt-stricken, first-world customers into donating a paltry sum of money to "Haiti" simply by forwarding a quasi-chain letter to all their contacts on bbm, I decided to come clean about my own shady efforts at fundraising.

It all started with a conversation I had with my friend Kat last night as she drove me home from a "snooki-acrylic-nail-pink-icinged cupcakes and jersey shore" girls night in (yeah, thats right, eurotrash watches that show). She told me about her failed attempts at saving money all her life and how she's ready to turn over a new leaf for 2010. It breaks my heart to write this now, as it did telling her then, I said: "unfortunately, Kat, you and I have the nice clothes, nice bag and nice shoes disease and we know the transitory cure all too well...".

Then a lightbulb flashed and I thought to myself, what if I could save money AND shop?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Hermes Belt Fund. Starting today, each paycheque I get, I will donate a certain portion to the HBF and for every dollar I place in that fund, I must place the same amount into an actual savings account. Sure it will take me twice as long to reach my goals, but when I do, I will have the same amount of money saved up as I just spent on a brand new Hermes belt! I know, I know, it's rather genius, I agree.

Why Hermes you ask? Look, a eurotrash girl has got every letter of the alphabet going on GG, LV, CC, RL, FF, DG, YSL - but this girl is missing the H; the ultimate fashion letter. Hermes is so sophisticated and so French that people hardly even wear it. Ignorance, n'est pas? For the more esoteric, we know that owning a piece with an H on it is like investing your money in an exclusive hedge fund that just keeps on giving. Look at Victoria Beckham, her Birkin and Kelly bag collection was recently totalled at 2 million dollars and she looks so good we could kill her. Then again, I'm sure she doesn't have an HBF going, but she might want to consider it, you know, just for fun.

Make no mistake though, for the rest of us eurotrash the HBF is serious business.

Danielle Steel: Proving you can still be Eurotrash after 50..

I have a confession to make. Over the (ahem, much extended) holiday season I read my first Danielle Steel novel. The correct response is: I have way too much time on my hands and I am now vehemently afraid of the thesaurus function. Forcing my way through all 352 pages of The House, I spent my last days of vacation waiting for Sarah Anderson to find out (because of course, I already knew after the first 10 pages) that she is in fact capable of falling in love with her steve martin-esque architect after a bad relationship with some hunk, buying a 30,000 square foot palace in San Francisco that her great-grandmother and her dead client lived in using her dead client's money she just happened to inherit, meeting a rich guy in Paris for inspirational prophecy and great wine, having a kid by accident and getting married - all at the age of 40. This is what a cold-blast in Florida induces. But every time I put the book down I would hover over its landing spot to stare at the back cover picture of Ms. Steel standing in the middle of an ornate living room donning a black ball gown with decollete neckline, hair pulled back immaculately.

I began to realize... this chick is eurotrash. I mean, she is always photographed wearing pearls or some obese necklace and jingly jangles (as my mom likes to call an excess of bracelets). Her tan is perma and her hair is sadly, longer than mine. It's as if she's managed to retain only the good parts of that Valley-of-the-dolls-meets-Joan-Collins look. And her life, well, if you think her books are outlandishly predictable, wait until you read her bio! Married five times, Steel is a recluse living in a 55-room home in San Francisco (sounds vaguely familiar...), early childhood spent in Paris with wealthy parents who taught her the joi de vivre which now demands she own a vacation home near St. Tropez, etc., etc. For Steel, art is the ultimate imitation of life. Damn, she is my kind of girl.

So I've sandwiched her in between Diane von Furstenberg and Donatella Versace in my style rolodex. Look at it this way: what author (of a book that is ostensibly NOT about fashion) goes into painstaking detail about her character's vintage Valentino dress find for an entire paragraph? And what author can trump her own book's front cover with her back cover head shot? She even has a fragrance and I swear, she is getting younger, like in an eerie Death Becomes Her sort of way. My advice? Add some of those gilded books to your library, they'll look perfect beside The Screwtape Letters and Bret Easton Ellis. I just did.