Friday, October 30, 2009

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

Yesterday, yours truly was invited to the launch party of a new perfume from Yves Saint Laurent.
A mask was required and dutifully bought (Made in China, with feathers, $4.50 at the corner stationery), some extra sequins were applied to add that fashionable je ne sais quoi. We arrived at the venue at 9:30 (invite said 9:00) to find a growing line of extraordinarily patient masked people wearing what they considered "stylish attire" as requested by the invitation. This being the fashion world, I could see two trends (neither of which I am to adopt any time soon). One were shoes seemingly designed by the Marquis de Sade, with heels so high that women totter in them, instead of walking. The other were very short tube skirts that made the wearers look like cheap Mexican hookers (I'd say circa 1980, but this is the uniform of the Mexican skin trade to this day). I can understand the fetishistic allure of the cruelly high heel. Wanting to look like a Third World prostitute encased in derma is more of a mystery to me. There were several bouncers at the door and a woman with a nasty punim looking into the crowd, don't know for signs of what. The venue is pretty big so it didn't seem conceivable that it had already filled to capacity. We waited for about half an hour, only because the crowd was so well behaved and like us, thought, despite every evidence to the contrary, that there might be some reasonable reason for the wait. During this time, the line did not move forward one inch. I didn't see anyone checking names on "the list" (which I now believe is a fantastical construct made for innocents from the human world, like me). People were patient until they stopped being patient. People feverishly dialed numbers. Nothing moved. They went to the front, and then came back. Nothing moved. People then decided to mob the entrance, at which Miserable Punim started screaming at everyone to make one single line, suddenly oblivious to the one single line which had been in front of her all evening. After this, we decided to go get us some steaks and some wine at Azul. At 11:30 pm, as we passed by the party on our way home the street was deserted, the bouncers were still there and the gates were closed. The entire thing was extremely unwelcoming, but I guess that's fashion. They get a frisson over such things. I much prefer good manners.
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