The Fashionista Files (5 page)

Now when we go out, I find myself worrying that he looks better than I do! But he always whispers in my ear, “Nothing looks as good as you, my beauty.” True or not, nothing sounds more delicious than that. Yet another reason I love him so.

This leads us to the last type of fashionista:

The Significant-other Fashionista
(Sometimes Called the Fashionisto)

You thought Issey Miyake was a Japanese noodle, and Fendi a disease from the African sub-Sahara, but now you know better. You used to shop at the Gap and Banana Republic, but now you insist on Jil Sander suits and Helmut Lang overcoats. You’ve caught the bug—you’re the fashionista’s better half.

Although you will begin to acquire more clothes than you ever deemed necessary, you will have to prepare to give up closet space. A lot of closet space. You can live out of a suitcase, right?

Get promoted. You’re going to need to make more money to support her shopping habit. And don’t even think of balking at price tags or saying something like “Five hundred dollars for a pair of shoes?”

Maintain your good looks. Hit the gym and slather on the Rogaine. She didn’t marry you because you were balding and fat!

Never put her jeans in the wash or be prepared for a bad scene. (They’re dry-clean-only denim; you should know that by now.) The same goes for bras. Dryers warp them, mister, so let them air-dry over a rack in the bathroom.

Cultivate your sense of humor and indulge her fashion fantasies. Never laugh at her outfits.
Unforgivable.

Learn the names of important designers and be able to spot them from a block away.

Say
unflattering,
not
fat. Fat
should never be used to describe any part of your girl, or even in the presence of her, come to think of it. Not even if you’re talking about meat or bacon.

Quick Tips for Making Over Your Man

Do it gently. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was any self-respecting fashionisto.

Stay true to who he is at heart. Work his new style around his needs. You’re not trying to change him, just improve him. If you are trying to change him, it may be time to think about finding someone else.

Begin by getting him new beauty products and work your way up from there. Once he sees the subtle differences lotion or hair gel can make, he will be more apt to try on the jeans you recommend.

Ooh, ah, and compliment him to death. Changing a man’s style is a lot like changing someone’s grip on a tennis racket. It will be uncomfortable for him at first, but if he sees how positively you respond, he will get used to it—and realize how much better-off he is.

Make sure he gets good shoes. Shoes are the most important part of anyone’s look. Even if it’s sneakers, they need to be the right sneakers (more of this in the closet chapter, which is next).

Once you have new shoes, get to the jeans. His jeans should be relaxed and sitting on his hips, not his waist. Also, they should not, under any circumstances, taper at the bottom or be too baggy—or too tight—through the hip area. Introduce him to the bootleg cut. When you get them altered, if they need shortening, tell the tailor to keep the same kind of seam intact.

Destroy all of his pleated pants. There is nothing worse than a cute guy in pleats. Invest in flat-front, flat-front, flat-front. We cannot stress that enough!

Get him at least one crisp white button-down shirt, one shirt with French cuffs, and silver cuff links.

If his hair needs a new look, take him to your place—your treat—and act like it’s a gift, something you’re doing just to be nice . . . which, of course, you are. You want him to look better. If that’s not nice, what is?

THE UPS, THE DOWNS, THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY—THE CREEDS THAT GIVE US CRED

Like the Jews, the Hare Krishnas, and other minority groups, fashionistas have endured much persecution, i.e., magazine intern-ships and multiple prom dress mishaps! It is because of our struggles of yesteryear that we are who we are today. Before you, as a fashionista, can enter a room in the drop-dead dress that causes a sensation, you must understand that the path to red-carpet glory is littered with the obstacles of fashion flops of the past. We are a people who relentlessly try the new, the daring, the impossible to explain. And therefore we have paid the consequences. We have found ourselves suffocating in the heat because we just had to wear our new leather motocross trousers . . . in August. We’ve been in the podiatrist’s office, nursing ingrown toenails as a result of shoes that were too pointy and too small (but we had to have them anyway). And we’re all the better because of it. Here’s a look at some of our flops that made history.

A Hair-raising Tale
MELISSA

I am a survivor of an all-girl private high school in the snooty Pacific Heights area of San Francisco. As anyone can tell you, high school can be rough, but imagine if the only other people in your class were thirty-eight
debutantes.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. There were only ten debutantes in our class that year; the other twenty-eight had to make do with their trust funds. Needless to say, nonconformity was not an option.

The girls I went to school with fit into three models: The first, in every sense of the word, were the gorgeous, slim-hipped, size-six (in my day, the popular girls weren’t size zero yet—which is a really frightening prospect for teens these days), usually blonde, milk-and-cream-skinned goddesses; these girls were so frighteningly pretty that when they graduated they made a profession out of it, and not just by modeling. The prettiest girl in my high school went on to marry an heir to an oil fortune, and she now graces glossy magazines with riveting tales of how she stocks her closet. Still, she’s not a fashionista. There’s a difference between fashionista and just being rich enough to buy nice things. Real fashionistas have a joie de vivre, a certain wacky irrepressibility that keeps them just shy of overt materialism.

The other two types of girls at my school were the aspirational, snub-nosed, dark-haired girls who acted like ladies-in-waiting to the goddesses, while the third group was made up of everyone else: the misfits.

The misfits at my school included anyone who didn’t wear a red Patagonia jacket over her uniform. To this day, I consider red (or blue) Patagonia jackets the uniform of the oppressor. I went to school wearing an ankle-length green army trench coat with epaulets and a beret. (The beret was a jaunty addition.) Other days I wore a gray fedora and an extra-long silk snakeprint scarf that I tied to my knee in homage to John Taylor of Duran Duran. “What’s up with the fedora?” I would hear the girls whisper.

“What’s up with the scarf?”

“Why is it on her
knee?
”

Mel at a really bad age. Her hair is bigger than the Xmas tree!

I could have explained that I was working a skate-punk-hip-hop-quasi-alternonew-wave-mall-rat look. But with my dyed-blond bangs, feathered hair, three-dollar Salvation Army blazer, and a best friend who dyed her long hair red with Kool-Aid and snorted when she laughed, I had no hope. On certain special Fridays, our school initiated a “free dress” day, wherein students were allowed to wear whatever they wanted—within reason (i.e., no midriff-baring shirts or spandex leggings—as if!). Most of my classmates took the opportunity to bust out the Benetton, Esprit, Guess? jeans, cable-knit sweaters (the sweater of the oppressor!), and a colorful palette of pastels, plaids, or khakis.

I still remember my favorite free-dress outfit. It was a checkered minisuit (with mighty stiff shoulder pads), white tights, ruched boots, and my fake Louis Vuitton bucket bag. I still remember how much it cost—$19.99 from Foxmoor, a trendy store in the mall. It was my “New York” outfit. When I wore it, I dreamed I was dashing around the streets of Manhattan, a smart, successful, independent woman. I was sixteen then, and little did I know New Yorkers would never be caught dead in white tights and the hellacious perm I am sporting in this picture. But back then, this outfit was my rebellion against the cookie-cutter preppy wear of my peers. And even if I cringe when I see it, I’m still proud of the suburban girl who had big-city dreams bigger than her hair.

Bittersweet Sixteen
KAREN

When I was sixteen, I begged my parents to get me an oversize Dallas Cowboys fully sequined royal-blue football jersey—with shoulder pads and number on the back—to wear to my best friend’s birthday party. It was expensive, so they said no. Not having it felt like such agony. I had no idea how I’d even get out of the house on the eve of her sixteenth year. Clearly no other ensemble would do. And one sweet day, my mother came home with it to surprise me (she got it through a friend, who knew a friend who worked in the showroom and was able to get it wholesale, which means half-price). It felt like a gift from the heavens. I was in a state of shock that I actually owned something so fabulous. The thought of wearing it was so exciting, I couldn’t sleep for days. I wouldn’t even put it in my closet. I left it hanging on the closet door, just so I could look at it at all times.

I wouldn’t tell any of my friends what I’d be wearing to the party. I wanted to surprise people, as if it were a wedding dress. I turned up wearing it—with silver heels and a white sequined miniskirt (I opted to skip the matching sequined baseball hat, much to my mom’s chagrin; even then I knew when to draw the fashion line!)—and thought I was the cat’s meow. I danced all night and walked tall and proud in my shiny ensemble. “Some outfit” was the best compliment of the evening. They were just jealous, I told myself! I never wore it again—not because I didn’t want to, but because I had no other place to wear it. Until one year later, when I was invited to another sweet sixteen in a different part of town, where the audience would be totally new. It’s not the kind of look you can wear twice with the same crowd.

I pulled it out of my closet, slowly unzipped the garment bag, and took it out. But all of my giddy emotions of admiration had left the building. I felt a wave of sadness come over me. This wasn’t so great. The shoulder pads were huge. And I didn’t even really like the Cowboys. My dad happened to, but at the wise age of seventeen, I came to understand that it was probably just because of the cheerleaders.

1-2-3 hike (this outfit out of the closet)!

I looked at this sparkling piece of fabric, thinking,
Huh . . . I remember it being
much, much cuter.
I put it on, just to make sure. Suddenly I saw myself not as this cute little sylph in a daringly bold outfit, but a tiny little drag queen with a Bon Jovi haircut! I zipped the bag up and went with another dress—something simple and black with sequined straps. It was at that point that epiphany struck: The Cowboys outfit was a mistake. I hoped never to see it again.

Flash forward: I was twenty-one years old and I had to go to my cousin Bryan’s bar mitzvah. I had gained twenty pounds during the first semester of college and none of my clothes fit. Not the dress I was originally supposed to wear. Not a suit, not a skirt, not even a blouse! I didn’t want to go. There was no time to shop for something new. I got home from school on a Saturday morning and there were services to get to and a party to attend right away. I pleaded with my parents to let me stay home. But they wouldn’t give in. They didn’t understand that when fashionistas can’t find the right clothes, leaving the house is simply not an option. Suddenly my mother emerged from the attic with the sequined football jersey, the largest piece of clothing in the house. “No! Not that! Anything but that,” I screamed. The next thing I knew I was at the party, sitting (well, whining and moping) in the corner, stuffing myself with cake, in the midst of a miserable fashion moment. (Need I add that the skirt was my mother’s—and I couldn’t button or zip it, but the top was long enough to cover it up?)

All the waiters and valet attendants accosted me: “Hey, Dallas Cowboys fan!” “Hey, you like Troy Aikman?” “What about the cheerleaders?” I was mortified. My cousin’s little friends yelled technical sports terms at me, like “Hike!” and “Touchdown!” No one knew I was secretly very stylish. To them I was just a dumpy Dallas Cowboys fan with very gaudy taste in clothing. I have yet to forgive my parents.

The Rules of the Game

In our years-long search for just the right outfit, we have compiled a few rules to get dressed by.

Never do head-to-toe of the same designer. You’ll look like a walking billboard. Always bring a bit of “you” to whatever you wear—a signature necklace, great earrings, your trusty old Levi’s. Having a personal sense of style and injecting your personality into something is key.

Mix high and low—ultraexpensive items along with cheap finds in order to project a careless, unsnobby image.

Always have one ultraluxe item, like a handbag, a wallet, or a belt, or major jewelry to elevate your outfit. You can wear rags, but if you’re carrying a Birkin, no one will ever know. One New York Times fashion critic likes to wear Wal-Mart with her five-hundred-dollar Celine platforms.

Save supertrendy and easily identifiable items for five years after wearing them during their “it” season.

Never wear more than one trend at once. Pick a focal point of your ensemble (a poncho!) and build your whole look around it (don’t wear the poncho with high-heeled sneakers!).

Own a trench coat. It’s the one classic thing that will always look chic and fresh.

Don’t wear mid-calf-length skirts if you’re short. It cuts the leg off.

When in doubt, a white button-down shirt will always do. Just add great earrings, high heels, and anything from strands of pearls of different lengths to a groovy scarf, tied on the side or in the back so that the tails hang low in a seductive, exotic way.

Walk with a purpose. If you look confident, people will think you are.

Never look like you’re trying too hard. Elegance should be effortless.

Mix and match your clothes. Throw on suit jackets with jeans and tank tops with the pants—sans jacket.

Wear a great bra at all times. Go to a lingerie store to find your right size, and before going out of the house lift your breasts in the bra to make sure that the nipples are centered and the “girls” look high and supported. Maidenform’s One Fabulous Fit bra always does good things to the bust.

Don’t fear color. Embrace it. Just not too much of it!

Avoid panty lines at all costs. They are wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wear your clothes. Don’t let them wear you. Know what works on your body and what doesn’t and only buy something you love. Just because it’s trendy doesn’t always mean it’s good.