What Would Woody Do?

One of my favourite parts from one of my favourite movies, Everyone Says I Love You, is when narrator, DJ, announces the coming of winter and the Dandridge family's holiday plans:

"But when Christmas comes... We're not the kind of family that sings carols... and we don't have a goose or anything. What we do is head for Paris, to spend Christmas at the Ritz".

As if having Woody Allen for a father isn't eurotrash enough, DJ and her entire band of misfit toys do what eurotrash always does this time of year: FLY OUT! Now, a eurotrash girl must confess that the inspiration for this post had something to do with a last-minute booking and everything to do with the fulfillment of a sound prophecy. You see, for some people 'tis the season for stuffing stockings... for others, 'tis the season for stuffing suitcases. My better half has her suitcase already stuffed; prophecy fulfilled. However, up until yesterday I really thought that the prophecy was being cruelly selective; I was a eurotrash pariah desperately shaking all the gifts under the tree in hopes of finding Pearson airport. Silly me, I should've just checked my Inbox where the e-ticket lay awaiting.

Alas, with full authority, I take charge of this post to preach the truths of the eurotrash holiday prophecy. Someway, somehow, a flight will find her. That's why when asked what she's doing for New Year's Eve, a eurotrash girl doesn't commit to any definitive plans beyond champagne. Albeit, some years the prophecy thwarts our lifestyle (or our lifestyle thwarts the prophecy?) and we get stuck on the couch, toasting to Dick Clark in HD, but we truly hope that was a one time deal. Besides, we hadn't even started the blog yet. Humble beginnings.

And not so humble ends. Whatever.

Happy Holidays and Bon Voyage!

The Eurotrash Stocking Stuffed

Flying home on a red-eye from San Francisco a few nights ago, while the other passengers slept soundly, I decided to catch up on my reading. Besides I didn't want to go to bed without having done at least one "flip through" the spanking glossy December issue of Vogue that awaited me in the Hudson News bag I had been clenching since I passed the gate. Two things happened during the flip through: I read a brilliant article and I wrote a brilliant article. (Well, the former directly inspired the latter which, when I say 'wrote' I really mean that I was waiting until THIS moment to actually write... But, since when does a eurotrash girl need to justify logistics?).

Susie Boyt's "The Good Stuff" is for anyone who loves hearing about other people in the world who are just as ferociously obsessed with goodies as they are and THIS eurotrash girl is a certified, goodies fiend. My dearest Susie just made the Christmas stocking the next best thing. She ONLY gives out stockings and fills them with personalized fare, from London Sole red ballet slippers for the dancer to Monopoly Deal cards for the constant traveller; if you're lucky, she might even include pink pencils stamped with your name in gold and the lyrics to your favourite song penned on stiff correspondence cards. A few jars of Tiptree Orange marmalade paired with Keats' Selected Letters and Susie just decked your halls! But enough about her. Naturally, I started to think about what a eurotrash stocking would be stuffed with and came up with a list of my own. Susie, this one's for you.

The Eurotrash Stocking Stuffed:

The receptacle:

One gold deluxe Moon Boot from the Winter Monarchy collection.

The stuffing:

Twelve OPI Holiday Wishes collection nail polishes, from 'Smitten with Mittens' to 'All A-Bordeaux the Sled', complete with twelve separate polish changes. Eurotrash paint her own nails? Not even if she had two right hands!

Eleven + nine tracks of sweet parisian nouveau-jazz: Pompugnac's Hotel Costes a Decade 1999-2009 compilation. The actual cd. iTunes is great and all when one is feeling paresseuse but nothing is more eurotrash than collecting rare compact discs in artsy cases, no plastic please.

Ten glistening Neapolitan cards of the winning suit in a just-started, favourable game of brisk - the ultimate eurotrash pastime, around 4pm.

Nine cypraeovula volvens south african seashells. Just as good as tissue paper.

Eight x 10,000 aeroplan miles. Because that next flight is always around the corner and never worth a dime over the airport taxes!

Seven previously owned Agatha Christie gialli. (The preferred edition should be published by Pocket Books New York during the 80s). Read one every day between Christmas and New Years Eve to ward off cabin fever with Poirot's franco-wit.

Six luxury candles. I suggest Tocca's Florence candle six times or for the rich, Luxury Soy Candles' Champagne Noir Soy with a 2.3carat, G colour and VS clarity, diamond embellishment in 14k white gold, setting you back a breezy $5,000. Don't worry, most luxury candles come with their own matches, which is perhaps the eurotrashiest part. I mean, I would be happy receiving just the matches...

All Five seasons of Absolutely Fabulous - Eddy and Patsy, the reigning queens of eurotrash before we became the reigning queens of eurotrash.

Four Links of London sterling silver holiday charms: the jumping reindeer, the stocking, the mitten and the gingerbread man. NB: you need to already own the charm bracelet upon which to solder these silver friends for this to mean anything. Sorry, thread just won't do.

Three glasses of Krug Clos Ambonnay champagne, to be drank while opening the stocking.

Two Converse Rockability sneakers - the reinterpreted studded version, of course - made exclusively for eurotrash's fav boutique in Florence, Luisa Via Roma. I know it sounds like a dream, but the store really does get famous designers to do special things for them and in turn, for us.

And last but not least, the other Moon Boot, obviously.

New York Herald Tribune

Lately, there have been a whole lot of eurotrash happenings spotted on this famous parisian street. First Lindsay Lohan, hitting the boutiques one last time before she lost all fashion credibility post-Ungaro sfilata. And now, just this past saturday, while walking along the same street, my sister found herself being ordered to yield to two, large, wrought iron gates, opening upon the command of an ooh-la-la male specimen from within the confines of his sleek, black mercedes-benz s-class something. She continued to gawk at the scene as he removed himself from the subpar rue and drove right onto the glistening sidewalk until he reached the gates agape, and disappeared into the lap of luxury. The gates closed behind him, signalling to the pedestrians that the show was over and they could continue to go on about their window shopping. My sister obliged accordingly, but not without making an overseas phone call first, to tell a eurotrash girl that she may be onto something...

Fall Back, Spring Forward

This really should be the fashion industry's motto because it sure seems to be its M.O.

A eurotrash girl can make observations like this because she (like all of you temporally unprivileged consumers out there) is subject to the annual fall spring double whammy and more importantly, ALWAYS at the wrong time. After a summer abroad, where she got by on only two issues of italian vogue as vestiges of the fashion world she so readily abandoned, relying solely on her inner compass to concoct unforgettable outfits from the paltry vacation wardrobe she woke up to every morning, she barely sets foot on canadian soil only to be greeted by winter weather and spring clothes!

But spring is nowhere to be found amidst the dark, wet blanket that hovers over her, except, of course, on every single blog and website she visits in search of fashion inspiration. How can she be expected to rock out amazing outfits day by day in the fall when fall is already so passe'? All the cool kids are talking about Chanel's new spring clog and Christian Dior's bourdoir touches, meanwhile it's snowing outside and all a eurotrash girl wants to talk about is the Missoni snood as novelty, like she did in March. That's the sum of it, in the fall she is brought back to her summertime muses with a sad nostalgia and in the spring, she is urged to fast forward and start thinking about getting all warm and fuzzy and sipping hot cocoa by the fire.

Dear fashion world, will we ever synchronize our clocks?

Above, Denis Guidon's Ora ilLegale daylight savings clock.

Adventures of the Eurotrash iPod: Chapter 1.

Scroll, scroll.... click, click, cue Kings of Convenience playlist.

Those of you who have had the pleasure of perusing my iPod will be hard-pressed to put your fingers on what exactly a eurotrash girl's music taste consists in. Hints obtained by reading through past blog posts are of no help: Hed Kandi, bossa novas, Michael Jackson, Drake... Sounds like a mischievous game of 'all of these things don't belong'. Consider this, I recently had to get a new hard-drive solely to accommodate my, busting at the seams, iTunes library.

Other than her dashing ability to foresee burgeoning trends before they burgeon, eurotrash WAS one of the first girls to own an iPod, 1st generation with the 4 buttons on top, a touch wheel and brick bodice, because she needed a soundtrack to her life.

Her iPod has been a faithful companion, cueing in the right song at the right time, transforming ordinary life into a movie. She thinks there is something so eurotrash about living in her own personal movie, without the artifice of post-production; it is as real as Bazin could ever hope. Like that first time she sat poolside at the Villas in Ravello, high above the sea barely peeking through the valley, listening to Real Ibiza Vol IV; the music made that moment a moment. She remembers it through the music, through Abraham's "Magpie". Now when she walks down the gloomy streets of Toronto, one touch of the play button, and she instantly sees the culmination of her life moments in one. She is poolside in Ravello AND sipping a nonfat latte while crossing bloor and avenue. This summer she brought a bit of her city to the coast, blasting Drake's "The City is Mine" on board Big Poppa while looking out to the open water of the medi, not a city in sight. Is there any better explanation as to why the Hammond B3 organ takes her back to her childhood? Why she can't listen to Interpol without remembering? Why Subsonica is best listened to on long bus rides across Lombardy and Justin Timberlake has a special place in Londontown? Why Jazz fits on Sunday, why Turkish music reminds her of Las Vegas, why Mahler's 5th got her through her thesis and will subsequently never be listened to ever again? Believe me, the list goes on.

Her misunderstood iPod is eurotrash just like her. She'll postpone her life happening just to find the perfect song to make it happen. And with the unfathomable success that the iPod has had since she bought her first one for 600 dollars (a rarity back then), it would seem that she is not the only one making a mundane, perhaps even depressing, trip to the laundromat a little more eurotrash by pressing play.

AN OPEN LETTER TO DRIZZY DRAKE

Dear Drizzy:

you have been been making all of toronto bob its collective head since you positively busted out this past spring with your hit single best i ever had. you're sooo sexy, your flow is the smoothest and most irresistible we've heard since biggie and you're from the tdot. what more could we ask for? the answer is your new single killa. a fervent text message from my better half last night informed me that in the first verse you make a shout-out to the amalfi coast, la divina costiera where eurotrash spent 7 long weeks this past summer. coincidence or direct inspiration? we like to imagine it's the latter. but in any case:

drizzzzzzzzy drake, we adore you.

love, eurotrash

... but i got a new jacket.

First and foremost, it's a miracle that I was even able to summon up the tenacity to blog today after almost choking on my special k cereal this morning when I opened up to page A2 of The Star and read the following headline: "Lilo takes Paris plunge". Just when we thought that nothing worse could happen to the post-apocalyptic fashion world, Lindsay Lohan gets a job designing for Emanuel Ungaro. Yes, the house that eurotrash used to love so much for that little added touch of bright red shoes, so wizard-of-Oz-esque, on every model's feet. According to David Graham, who barely dodged fourth degree murder, the show got mixed reviews - some called it the future of fashion (as coco, louis, yves and gianni all roll in their graves) and others, whom i like to call the more astute critics, called it an embarrassment. My hat goes off to Lindsay who was seen shopping leisurely on the Champs-Elysees the day before the show; now, that may not be dedication, but it is definitely eurotrash. 

So, hushing her dwindling faith in fashion for the duration of this post, eurotrash must address the rapidly plunging temperatures and her need for fur. (Disclaimer: eurotrash wears fur). My better half, whose last post rocked my world, already got her winter jacket and I am starting to feel the pressure. I don't want to be the girl who finds her dream winter jacket in another girl's size, or heaven forbid, donned by another girl. I have to double back for a moment here to when wearing a winter jacket was uncool and then to the era of the tommy and polo bombers and lastly, to the deceased tna parka, in order to appreciate how far we've come in embracing the climate just to have an excuse for adding another piece to the ever-expanding, women's wardrobe. Nowadays, being caught scantily clad in the dead of winter is a sign of fashion ineptitude, pace Lilo. Instead, eurotrash approaches winter like the Czar's daughter, and indulges in designer goose down parkas with luscious, over-the-top, fox fur trimmed hoods and collars. I mean, if you really think about it, the winter jacket is the one piece that eurotrash is dragooned into wearing every single day for approximately 7 months, give or take. That's 5 dollars a day for a jacket that costs circa 1k. Hello, investment. 

Pair the jacket with Uggs or Moon Boots, Cavalli rabbit-fur earmuffs, LV "british royal guard" fur hat (only for the brave), seal skin gloves and an extra long, missoni scarf-hat; and you have not only a case for PETA, but an undeniable, knock-out winter gitch. This year eurotrash cannot disclose her final decision on a jacket, but is leaning towards Riccardo Fiume's Hell is for Heroes ski jacket. Originally designed for climbing the mountains of Tibet, the tag line for the collection reads: "When a mountain loves a woman". Needless to say, it is easy to see how my painstaking search for a functional, yet recherche' winter jacket could quickly end here. 

If this ski store that I've never heard of on Yonge Street doesn't have the Hell is for Heroes "Scout" jacket then I'm getting my partner in crime to bamboozle canadian customs once again on her way back from Italy next month and smuggle in both our winter jackets in one sitting. 

Il faut souffrir....