Glossed Over

Bazaar Justifies Luxury Price Tags, Own Existence

For a long time, we’ve been peeved by magazines’ skewed ideas of what constitutes affordable. (Never mind the debate over whether fashion prices are deliberately exclusionary.) So pervasive is the notion that $150 is a reasonable expense for a belt that we occasionally have to wonder why our wardrobe contains so few expensive pieces. Will we ever own a pair of red-soled Louboutins? Is there some expense we could cut from our budget to be better able to afford a Balenciaga bag? Are we flat-out deluded thinking that our ensembles look like they don’t come from H&M? Not that we want those things, exactly, but we want to be able to afford them.

And then we had a sobering experience. We were at MAGIC, talking to a sales rep. As she showed us a handful of modal t-shirts, we asked the wholesale price. “$37,” she replied.

Our response? “Oh, so that’s really accessible.” The sales rep nodded and moved on to pick up a hooded sweatshirt, and we started to hate ourselves. At a wholesale price of $37, that t-shirt likely retails for at least $70. Which, even if money were no object, is an awful lot of cash to spend on a mere tee, and $70 is certainly not a mass-market price for a little cotton shirt. But in the moment we deemed that particular price point “accessible,” we wholeheartedly believed it. We were sleep-deprived, we’d already spent days walking the never-ending aisles of the show seeing pieces whose prices were far more unjustified, and, well, the t-shirts were baby-blanket soft. (We just feel fortunate that we snapped back to reality before we broke out the Visa card at the Fashion Show Mall later in the week.)

All of which is a really long way of saying that, having been immersed in a fantasy land of desirable consumer goods, we sort of understand how writers for Bazaar choke up the nerve to refer to a $300 cardigan as a “steal.” So our interest was piqued by “Why Does It Cost So Much?” in the March issue. Why, indeed?

Unfortunately, the article devotes just one brief paragraph to the actual reasons why apparel and accessories bear exorbitant price tags. Discard any notions of getting an educational glimpse inside the industry! Rather, the focus is on “how to cope and still look cool.” Here’s what writer Nandini D’Souza had to say:

...I held up my beloved pair of silver Dries Van Noten leather sandals...“How much do you think these cost?” I asked my husband, playing devil’s advocate. “Flip-flops are cheap,” he analyzed in a finance-thinking way. “But since they’re designer, $40, maybe $50.”

Until then, I had never doubted the $300-plus I had shelled out a few years ago for them…I started questioning my sanity: More than $300 for flip-flops?...I had thought I was one of the more frugal fashion editors around. But I wondered, when did everything get so expensive, and when did I stop noticing?

This apparently sincere question is followed by a litany of agreement from people who can actually afford those $300 flip-flops. Which, you know, is annoying. Can you really complain that $500 is too much to pay for shoes when, in fact, you have the ability to buy $500 shoes? (Tangential whine: when did “social” become acceptable parlance for “socialite”?)

“Social” Nina Griscom says,

“The prices today are so astronomical.”

And designer Jenni Kayne weighs in:

“You can’t get a pair for less than $500; $300 used to be the normal expensive shoe.”

So who’s to blame for these ultra-pricey pieces? Designers! Phillip Lim explains himself.

“A dress can cost you $20,000. That’s a whole lot of money,” he says. “You can renovate your kitchen for that, or for some people that’s their salary or their child’s school tuition. You start to feel guilty.”

Start?

For one, lines like Lim’s 3.1 Phillip Lim and Kayne’s label are filling the yawning gap between high and low. Socialite turned designer Tory Burch says, “The whole reason I started my company is because fashion is expensive.”

Tory Burch also charges $195 for a striped cotton tee, so forgive us if we aren’t exactly in agreement with her assessment of “expensive.”

To be fair, the article does give some reasonably good (if not novel) advice about not buying things just because they’re on sale, and recommends that women develop a uniform that suits their body type and lifestyle so they don’t feel the need to give in to every passing trend. However, the article gets progressively more grating, predictably returning to the justification of the positively vulgar price tags of luxury goods. What else can be expected from people whose livelihoods are dependent on the public buying costly stuff they don’t need? A chorus of fashion people rationalize their expenditures thusly:

On a $1,300 pair of Chanel boots:

“But they’re worth it, and they make everything look chic.”

On an Oscar de la Renta dress:

“…I’ll have it for the rest of my life. You can wear it again, and it never looks like last season’s dress.”

On $800 Azzedine Alaia shoes:

“Outrageous. But I wear them a lot.”

About the $7,000-and-up Kelly and Birkin bags from Hermès:

“It’s more about what’s timeless than what’s trendy.”

And our favorite, on a handbag by Yves Saint Laurent:

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s only $1,595. It’s a deal!’” she recalls. “How sad is that?”

Very, very sad. Even worse is the article’s next implication. Can’t even manage to splash out on one of these “deal”s? You’re probably fat, too!

But let’s face it, not everyone can pull off those curved contours the way Jennifer Connelly did just weeks after Nicholas Ghesquiere introduced them. That doesn’t mean that that look can’t translate for a less-than-lithe nonceleb gal. “If you can’t afford the dress, get the shirt or scarf,” says [actress/designer Katie] Nehra. [emphasis ours]

Wait, we’re confused. What exactly is our problem again? Is it that we can’t afford or can’t fit into designer garb? Never mind! Here’s another plug for Phillip Lim!

…For spring, he has several alternatives to his own runway looks, including versions of a mint Grecian dress and a citron frock with a chain neckline.

At least he’s smart enough to knock off his own designs before Forever 21 does! Though we aren’t exactly sure how this reconciles with the guilt he mentioned earlier, especially when he suggests a way to acclimate to items whose prices contain a comma.

Lim’s advice for things that seem too expensive at first? “Sit on it for a few days, maybe a week.” [emphasis ours]

However, the most incredulity-inducing quote in the whole article has nothing to do with cash money:

Echoes Burch of seasonal hits, “They’re so identifiable, and I’d rather not wear something that screams what it is.”

This from a woman who puts her logo all over her line.

Ultimately, the article concludes that we should approach our wardrobes and our retirement plans in a similar manner.

The best way to stretch your dollar while still looking like a million of them is to think long-term investment...

Designer clothes as a long-term investment? Rather ludicrous coming from a magazine that tells us we need new clothes every single month.

Self: A Gay Man Deceives His Wife, Redoes Household Decor

Sure, we expect bitterness from a woman whose husband married her in a desperate attempt to quash his gayness. But we were bewildered by Self’s “I Married a Gay Man” (February). Near the end of the essay, the anonymous author describes the situation now that she and her ex, Chris, have both settled into new relationships.

My relationship with Chris is as good as it can possibly be, given the circumstances. We do birthday parties and some holidays together, and he and his male partner live in—and have redecorated—our former house… [bolding ours]

Redecorated? Really? He redecorated? Did he give her a makeover, too?

For an article that is at least ostensibly about forgiveness and acceptance, we found that to be a strange detail to throw in. But then, we’ve never been married to a gay man, so what do we know? Apparently, we’ve dodged a bullet. Check out this statistic quoted in the article which, conveniently, the author managed to twist to illustrate that, OMG, gay men marrying straight women is an imminent plague upon our society.

...research done by University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann, Ph.D., estimated that between 1.5 million and 2.9 million American women who have ever been married had a husband who had had sex with another man. That means there are a large number of women who have no idea what their husband does in secret.

Seriously, we’re finding the presentation of this statistic a bit dicey. Women who have ever been married? A husband who had had sex with another man? That doesn’t necessarily equate to a husband who’s sneaking around on his wife with other men; it applies equally to a married man who, say, had an experimental phase at some point, or a divorced woman whose ex was bisexual, or any number of permutations.

And anyway, there probably aren’t any statistics to back this up, but what husbands do in secret is more likely to involve online poker and reading their wives’ back issues of Cosmo than illicit gay sex. (Hi, honey!) Though, to be sure, Anonymous includes a damning admission of that, too, after she confronts him with her newly diagnosed case of chlamydia:

He had been having anonymous sex with men. “I don’t know how this could have happened,” he stammered. “It’s nobody that I knew...it was mostly oral sex...it just happened.... At gay bars, there are back rooms with holes in the walls....”

And when he did have relations with his unsuspecting wife, it was just like that scene in Brokeback Mountain between Ennis and Alma. It made her “very emotional,” watching that movie.

So what’s a girl to do? Is there any way our plucky heroine could have seen this coming? Or is being married to a gay man a fate that could befall most any woman?

Well:

Early in our relationship, Chris told me he’d had homosexual experiences as a teenager but assured me it was youthful curiosity.

And...

Two unusual things happened on our first date. After we watched the movie Romancing the Stone, Chris said, “I think I could marry you”...Then, after he kissed me good-night, he shocked me again, saying, “No matter what you hear, I’m not gay.” In fact, I had heard other students say that everyone in his fraternity was gay.

That answers that, at least. If this article is to be believed, foresight is more rare than a man who’ll redecorate the house.

Lucky's "Real" Women Bring the Lie to Life

[Sorry about our unexpected absence last week.  Our week on deadline at work quickly dissolved into an eleven-hour-a-day nightmare, and, well, we chose sleep.  We hope to be back on our regular schedule this week.]

This isn’t surprising, exactly, but it’s always heart-warming to see our worst suspicions confirmed!   We’ve long suspected the “real women” segments of Lucky magazine of being completely false.   Are we really to believe that these women just happen to cite cutting-edge fashions as their favorites?   Is it mere happenstance that they can describe luxury beauty products better than the beauty editor herself?   Can it even be possible that, no matter how artsy or itinerant their profession, these women can handily afford high-end apparel and accessories?

The answer to all three questions:  No.

Two different women featured in January’s issue have said that their recommendations were, in fact, fabricated by the magazine’s staffers.  First, Courtney Childs Lewis of “My Foolproof Outfit” wrote that neither her photo shoot ensemble nor her enthusiastic descriptions of the pieces were her own. Then, “Lucky Girl” Victoria Asher claimed to have been misquoted on “almost everything.”

Obviously, we don’t expect gospel from these magazines, and we know that selling expensive products and ad space is far more important that portraying any kind of accurate look at, well, anything.  But pages like this are troublesome because they perpetuate the notion that average women look a certain way (skinny, long hair), dress a certain way (designer, trendy), and have immense spending power.  (In “My Foolproof Outfit,” the bracelets alone cost $5,423.  Get real, Lucky.)

Magazines like Lucky could use average women as a vital link between the fashion world and the one the rest of us inhabit—they could be  reality check, or a conduit for trends, or our most trusted resources.  (Wouldn’t you rather hear about an eye cream from a woman who uses it than from some editor who’s probably shilling for an advertiser?)  Instead, they are used to perpetuate the lie and peddle overpriced crap.  It’s not news, it’s not groundbreaking, but knowing that the magazine is more interested in selling than in showing us actual style makes us a lucky woman indeed.

W: Cash in Short Supply, Smugness Still Plentiful

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from reading W, it's that being wealthy is incredibly demanding.  The parade of evidence continues in December’s issue  with the article “Nouveaux Pauvres.”  Does the title make you hate it already?  Yeah, us too, but the subhead manages to be even worse!  “London’s new prosperity has once posh types feeling poor,” it says.  Uh, yeah.  Cry us a river.  For a moment, we entertained the faint hope that that the article would prove to be an intelligent discussion about the economy, inflation, and the state of the British pound.  No such luck!

We didn’t have to read too far into the article to discern that that piece serves primarily as a venue for the formerly wealthy (and still undeniably well-off) to complain about their lowered standard of living.  Like this guy, who “asked not to be named,” and no wonder:

“…there was my own kid, going to state school down at the bottom of the hill.  For the first time in my life, I felt working class.”

Aw, and to think this fellow grew up in a seven-bedroom home!  How the mighty have fallen!

To be fair, the article does cite some mind-boggling stats:  Britain’s housing prices have increased 52 percent in the last five years.  Skilled clerical temp workers are earning $400,000 a year working in finance, which is more than twice the salary of a fashion magazine editor-in-chief.  Which is a totally relevant and helpful salary comparison.  (Also, is being bitchy considered a skill?  If so, we’re moving.)  And, the article continues, prices at Abercrombie and Fitch are twice what they are in the U.S., like the people in this piece would ever deign to shop there.

Of course, there’s no explanation of why feeling (though not actually being) working class is so terrible, especially when, by all accounts, the people profiled still have more money than they could possibly need.  And the plight of those who truly are working class?  Ignored, natch.

At least those super-rich types are incredibly compassionate.  Or not so much.

One investment banker, who asked to remain anonymous [because he’s a total ass], said the vast majority of his colleagues would not be able to send their children to private schools… “Of course, it would be a real struggle for them, but you know, tough s---,” [sic] he says.  “That’s just the way it is now.”

Charming!

Fortunately for those who can still scrape up enough silver to send their kids to a private school, there are also establishments where they can gather to discuss their world-domination cabal and not have to worry about encountering the hoi polloi.  Yet another anonymous banker type (what is it with these guys?)  fills us in on the clubs that cater to wealthy men:

“True, it’s difficult to become a member, but once you’re in, membership costs almost nothing, you never have to fight to get a table, and the meals are considerably cheaper than Zuma,” says one London banker, referring to a top foodie haunt.

Oh, good!  The insanely wealthy are saving money!  The article goes on to further detail the adversity the wealthy face everyday in this new, cash-crazed England:

Some Londoners have caved and begun sending their kids to state schools or “the scruffier private schools”…

And:

Hector Macdonald….is seeking his fortune outside the UK.  He’s been snapping up houses, not in Belgravia but in Bulgaria, “because they’re cheap and it’s a good investment,” he says.

Still more!  An art collector (is that an actual profession? sounds like a hobby) with a net worth upwards of $20 million says:

“We’re ‘comfortably’ poor.  We’re swimming on the edges of real wealth.”  By that she means the sort of wealth that buys a private jet, or at the very least, an account with NetJets.  “The rich don’t fly commercial anymore,” she says.

Are your eyes filling with tears yet?  The struggles of the rich continue!

Helen Kirwan-Taylor, an American writer whose English husband heads up a hedge fund, is one of the only people on her block in Holland Park without a chauffeur. 

Kirwan-Taylor, at least, does acknowledge that there are worse problems than having to drive your own car:

“London is what it is because of the creative industries based here,” says Kirwan-Taylor.  “And if the intellectual body of the city—the artists, writers, designers, creative directors—can no longer afford to live here, that’s a big risk we’re taking.”

Perhaps those artsy types should just marry bankers like she did! 

Others predict the growing ranks of the discontented might well spur a new wave of creativity in literature and art.

Because, you know, being poor begets art.  The wealthy folk know all about that, because they saw Rent.  The stage production, even, not merely the movie!

The article wraps up with a brief paragraph about the action the government is considering to normalize the economy, then reminds us of who’s truly suffering in this situation.

But it might be too late for [Lady Kinvara] Balfour, who, like many young London professionals, is contemplating a move abroad.  “You can do so much more with your money in America,” she says.

Indeed!  In this great land, the rich can revert to feeling superior to the rest of us.

Allure's Interpretation of Dressing Cheaply Varies from Ours

Know what’s even better than arbitrary fashion rules? Appending heavy-handed assumptions about sexuality to the clothing in question!  Why just scrutinize an outfit when you can cast aspersion on someone’s character, too?  Allure’s “Life of the Party,” December, covers all those bases in the guise of helping us discern what, exactly, we’re supposed to wear to holiday parties with nebulous dress codes.  (Festive casual?  What the hell?) 

Here’s some priceless guidance from stylist Kate Young:

And I love dresses by Kate Moss for TopShop.  They’re really fancy but still fun and slutty—in a good way.

Oh.  Whew.  Well, as long as they’re slutty in a good way… We really, really wish Allure had pestered Young to expound on this point.  The word “slut” has such negative connotations, but Young is saying to be “slutty in a good way.”  Is she telling us to eschew society’s standards?  Is she urging us to embrace our sexuality?  Does she want to jettison such labels altogether?

Who knows?  There’s no evidence Young herself has any clue, as she elucidates her slutty-in-a-good-way aesthetic:

Deep, plunging necklines are OK, as long as the amount of cleavage you’re showing is tasteful.

So a plunge neck is fine if it doesn’t show too much décolletage...which is kind of the point of a low-cut top. And where does the “slutty” part come in again?   We couldn’t tell you, but we could point you to part where it becomes clear that using the term “slutty” was just for shock value.

I don’t like backless for cocktail parties, though.  There’s something too risque about it...

And the appalling part:

...—in a way that low-cut in the front isn’t.  It shows you’re definitely not wearing a bra, and it invites men to walk up and touch you.

Right, because not covering our bodies from head to toe is a direct invitation for men to approach us and touch us!  It’s totally our fault for dressing that way if a man we don’t know feels ENTITLED to paw at us!

Here’s the unspeakably ludicrous part:

You know how a woman in lingerie is sexier than a naked woman?  It's the same sort of thing with this.  A backless dress just means business.

Business, eh?  We’re guessing she doesn’t mean the kind that takes place in boardrooms.  How lovely to imply that women with bare backs sell their bodies for cash!

You know, there’s a lot of talk about reclaiming negative words and repurposing them as emblems of strength.  If Kate Young was trying to do that with the term in question, we’d applaud her efforts.  But throwing out the word “slutty,” stripping it of meaning with the “in a good way” disclaimer, and then using it to propagate outrageously judgmental, outmoded, and flat-out incorrect standards doesn’t do anyone any favors. 

Least of all us—we have a holiday party coming up, and we still have no idea what to wear.

Advertising in Allure: Shirtless Shilling

Spotted in the October issue of Allure: four fragrance ads featuring nearly naked women.  Because everyone knows that wearing perfume means you don’t have to wear a shirt!  (But just in case, better cover up those breasts with whatever object is lying around!  Like that pile of flower petals!)

    

As repugnant (and lazy!) as we find the extraneous use of nudity to sell things, we dislike the Marc Jacobs and Mariah Carey ads even more.  Is the model in the Daisy ad unconscious?  Dead?  Or, you know, just asleep in the grass in her underwear?  Totally normal!  And the Mariah Carey ad—she’s mostly underwater, and her perfume promises an “ethereal presence.”  Thanks, but we’d rather be corporeal than ephemeral.

    

We just read the truly thought-provoking book Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne, which explores advertising and its insidious effects on women, and we can't stop thinking about it (and, yes, questioning everything we see).  However, there was one ad featuring a topless woman that we wholeheartedly endorse.

W Redefines "Fashion Victim" in Furry Photo Spread

We may not always like W’s fashion spreads, but we do appreciate that they don’t just pose the models in front of a gray fabric backdrop and call it a day.  The resulting photos are challenging and striking, and they always have a point of view.

All of which, sadly, is the best we can muster for “Into the Woods,” August.  It challenged us, all right—challenged us not to throw the whole issue across the room.  It wasn’t just the photos that looked like a child’s birthday party gone horribly wrong:

       
No, what really got to us was the stream of photos of model Doutzen Kroes wearing exotic furs while posed as if dead.  Is implied violence with an added hint of nudity what passes for edgy?

    

    

    

Good job, W!  Nothing makes us crave a Gucci badger fur coat like seeing it on the victim of a crime!  And nothing says high fashion like a dead woman wearing dead animals!

Marie Claire: Find Yourself...or Find a Man

Who says our time would be better spent reading books?  Magazines are a perfectly enriching way to spend our time.  In particular, the August edition of Marie Claire sent us on a journey of self-discovery.  See, the command on the cover—

Discover Your Inner Fembot!

—immediately piqued our interest, conjuring mental images of the fembots from the Austin Powers movies.  While dressing in feather-trimmed teddies and using our breasts as a lethal weapon does seem like a winning lifestyle choice, we weren’t sure we were ready to commit.  Fortunately, Marie Claire even included a handy quiz to determine whether we were perfectly suited to the fembot lifestyle!

Elle Editor Goes on the Offensive, Gets "Real"

Fight! Elle’s Roberta Meyers kicks off June’s “Editor’s Letter” by picking a bone with the women of The View.

…the girls got going about the tabloids’ recent photos depicting an “overweight” Tyra Banks, a conversation that somehow led Joy Behar to refer to the editors of Elle and other women’s magazines as “war criminals” who wage a “war against women.”  The implication was that we’ve all punished Tyra by refusing to use her as a model once she was no longer a waif; that we’re downright hostile to showing the curves of so-called real women.

We all know where this is going, right?  Cue the “magazines have nothing to do with eating disorders”  disclaimers, please.

Clearly Ms. Behar doesn’t read fashion magazines…

Actually, we suspect she does.   But don’t worry, Joy:  apparently, mags can’t transmit eating disorders!

([Anorexia] is largely heritable and negligibly influenced by media, according to all the good research)

Ah, the obligatory “it’s not our fault” justification.  Bring on a parade of protruding sternums, in that case!

And, in March, Elle ran a lengthy interview with a longtime sufferer of anorexia about the devastating effects of the disease.

So citing one article about the deleterious effects of anorexia completely counteracts the gazillion pictures of women so thin they probably don’t menstruate.

The truth is, of course, that the much bigger crisis facing young women these days is obesity…

By her own logic, then, Elle could feature size-12 models without encouraging obesity and maybe, somehow, propagate a teensy bit of body acceptance. Sounds like a win-win situation to us.  What do you think, Roberta?

And as for Elle’s complicity in trying to starve poor Tyra off the runway, I give you exhibit A: the last shoot we did with Ms. Banks, in which her banging curves are on full, enviable display.

As if Banks’ shoot had absolutely nothing to do with the magazine’s (now expired) partnership with America’s Next Top Model.  Also, did she really use the word “banging”?

Our unwaiflike cover star Jessica Biel…

We’ll give her this one.  Sure, Biel’s physique may be unattainable by us mortals, but at least she has discernible muscle tone (even if they did cover her sculpted thighs with those abominable shorts).

…as I write this from the competitive-bikini-wearing capital of the U.S., Los Angeles…

…and we will once again take it upon ourselves to ensure the rest of the country that we do actually wear clothes here in L.A.  In fact, sometimes we even wear closed-toe shoes!

Meyers wraps up by saying

…yes, there’s something for everyone to love, even us real women.

Riiiight, because Meyers is just like you and me!  Yes, there’s something for everyone to learn, namely that Meyers’ definition of a “real woman” must be completely different from ours.

Sarah Jessica Parker in Glamour: Once Bitten, Prices High

We’ve tried to like Sarah Jessica Parker.  We know it isn’t her fault that, sadly, Carrie Bradshaw seems to be the most influential character ever to appear on television.  According to her interview in June’s Glamour, even her husband blames her for the spread of the thong, so our feelings aren’t totally without merit.

But when we heard that she’d launched a clothing line, Bitten, wherein every item is priced below $20, our esteem for her surged.  Wow, we thought, a celeb launching an eminently affordable line?  How smart.  How thoughtful.  How…downright refreshing.

Sure, the line is pretty dull—striped tees and camouflage capri pants?  Yawn.  And the best description she can muster is this:

They’re well-made clothes that feel of-the-moment.

But, we thought, at least she’s trying.  We continued to appreciate that she isn’t (or doesn’t come off as, at least) an insipid starlet with no clue how people live outside her own pampered existence. 

And then we looked closely at the photo credits for the Glamour shoot.

In addition to a $15 hoodie and $15 jeans from her own collection, she also wears, among other designer items,  a $3,920 Louis Vuitton bag and $870 Christian Louboutin shoes.  (No Manolos?  Shocking!)  In the photo below, Sarah Jessica’s wearing a $15 denim jacket from her own collection…with a $2,255 Burberry Prorsum dress and $528 Jill Stuart boots. 

Which changed our feelings on matters completely.  To say this:

[Growing up in modest circumstances] informed my decision completely.  It’s a way of giving women without financial means access to good, simple, well-made clothes to feel proud of.

And then top off your bargain jeans and tee with a $3,635 Chanel jacket—exactly like those “women without financial means” are going to wear the stuff, right?—is more than a tad misleading.  Sure, it’s a magazine spread, but if the entire concept of your line is that it’s accessible, wouldn’t it be smart to portray the clothes in a way that’s actually attainable?

Later, SJP says:

…I don’t want to do [high fashion] for women, because that’s not really their lives.

Oh, okay.  Thanks for shedding some light on how we non-celebs live, since you obviously know so much about that.  Maybe our budget doesn’t allow for a $1,150 Oscar de la Renta top (not if we want to pay rent, that is), but it’s still mighty condescending to speak about making clothing that everyone can enjoy—and then portray it in a way that only a few can ever reach.  Not that we’ll be buying Bitten anyway:  without the designer duds, her stuff is dullsville.

What do you think?

W: It's Still Not Easy Being Enormously Wealthy

Like last month’s article about the oh-so-difficult quest to find the perfect nanny wasn’t enough, the May issue of W is replete with even more of the difficulties of the upper-crust experience.

Take this quote from “Mystic River” by Christopher Bagley, wherein the author discusses the rough adjustment to the service at the Old Cataract Hotel, “allegedly the best place” in Aswan, Egypt. Why the “allegedly”? Well, after a week of being catered to hand-and-foot on a cruise down the Nile, Bagley faces a rude awakening.

I distractedly reach for the handbell to summon the waiter, only to realize that there is no bell. And no waiter.

Grudgingly, and a bit wistfully, I get up to fetch lunch myself.

Oh, we hope he managed!

And let’s not overlook this annoying quote from “Eye: All-Stars,” wherein a wealthy and famous actress displays both a massive sense of entitlement and a seriously lousy sense of judgment:

Meanwhile, at Dior Beauty’s dinner at the Chateau Marmont, Charlize Theron, who happens to be the face of Dior’s J’adore fragrance, dropped by to get her nose powdered while pondering marketing strategies. “How do you get housewives in Cleveland to buy Dior makeup?” queried the actress innocently.

“Innocently”? We’re guessing W added that because even they recognize that making sweeping generalizations about the people to whom you’re trying to sell expensive luxury goods is exceedingly poor form.  And whatever your sales strategy, it’s probably a lot harder now that the brand's spokesperson has impugned the potential customers’ taste and buying power in a national magazine.  Good job, Charlize!

And a hearty congratulations to W, too, for its steady stream of class-conscious tripe.  If their goal is to accentuate the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us, they’re doing a commendable job.

Marie Claire: For the Love of Money...and Shoes

Perusing the “Shopping” section of May’s Marie Claire, we were almost impressed.  Not so much by the aesthetics or the practicality of the choices (seriously, MC, wearing a thousand dollar dress to Coachella?), but by the range of prices represented.  A $49 pair of sandals? A $44 pair of jeans?  How surprisingly affordable.

Inevitably, our reverie was shattered, and not just by the $120 bangle bracelet on page 46.  No, it all came to an end with “Shopping Deconstructed” on page 50.

Why Do These Shoes Cost $520?

We love this shoe, and Italian designer Cesare Paciotti promises: “It can last up to 10 years.”  But as with any investment, we still wanted to do our research.  That meant chopping it in two.

Which could be interesting, right?  We’ve never chopped open a shoe, and we’ve certainly never seen a shoe’s innards.  What could be inside to justify such a price tag?  Is the thing lined in cashmere?  Stitched in gold?  Is the stiletto made of platinum?

Well, no, but it does have texon. And sinterite. Nope, we don’t know what that stuff is either.

Ostensibly, deconstructing the raw material of clothes and shoes to determine their actual worth (and their no doubt staggering markup) could be a consumer-friendly feature. But here’s where the idea failed: By neglecting to adequately explain the value of such materials—and more importantly, completely failing to compare the innards of the $520 shoe with a more moderately priced one—Marie Claire turned this page into just another shill for overpriced designer goods. It isn’t “research” when you don’t have any perspective whatsoever for your findings.  It’s intellectually dishonest—not to mention downright lazy—to not even bother to explain how this pricey shoe might be superior (or, gasp!, equal) to one from Payless.  Sure, it almost certainly is better constructed, but...One measly sentence, Marie Claire!  That’s all we ask!

Instead, without any frame of reference, we’re apparently supposed to take at face value the explanation of why the shoe is worth so much cash. We’re supposed to be swayed by the magazine’s “love” for the stiletto. Sorry, Marie Claire. For us to be persuaded by this page, we’d have to actually value your opinion.

Lucky: Avril Lavigne's Post-Marriage Personality Makeover

We know Avril Lavigne just released a new album—how else could her appearance on the covers of Jane (April) and Lucky (May) be justified?—but we refuse to take her seriously as a fashion icon when she’s wearing an outfit that Shannen Doherty would have worn on season one of Beverly Hills, 90210.  (Maybe we’re showing our age here, but you know Brenda Walsh would have sported that vest at the Peach Pit along with the requisite paper-bag waist jeans and black fedora.)

In case the outfit isn’t reason enough to generate animosity toward Avril (though we will admit to coveting the star-shaped pendant), there’s the way she claims her marriage has changed her.

In Lucky’s “At the Shoot,” she says:

“I didn’t really care about fashion when I was a teenager, but in the last couple of years—since I got married, I guess—something changed,” says Avril, 22.  “Now I love so many things about it:  like cool heels and bags and all kinds of accessories.”

Then, in “Her Way”:

“I’m in a place in my life where I can try out things that are a bit more feminine, but still maintain some punk attitude.”

A place in her life? Being married, she means.

What a strange phenomenon.  Apparently, being legally wed leads a woman to develop a fascination with clothes and shoes!  Now that she’s got that ring on her finger, there’s no need to maintain her own persona.  Nope, the wedding day was the time to morph into an outmoded prototype of femininity!  Has she also cultivated an interest in cooking, cleaning, and childbirth?  Or is she only interested in exploiting stereotypes that relate to her appearance and therefore might boost her career?

We can’t say for sure, of course.  And as crassly commercial as the “new” Avril may be, her neckties-worn-with-tanks look from a few years back was just as calculated.  But what do we expect?  We can’t exactly hope for authenticity from a  woman who claims to have “punk attitude” while, in the same article, extolling the virtues of diamond jewelry and Armani gowns.

Elle Unwisely Crowns an Unlikely Fashion Icon

From Elle’€™s “€œFactory Girls,” April:

Rosie the Riveter emerges as spring’€™s most unexpected style icon as designers reimagine simple blouses, high-waisted trousers, and other 1940s staples.

So adopting Rosie the Riveter as a mascot of sorts for these fashions makes perfect sense.  Because when Rosie said “We can do it!,” she actually meant “We can appropriate otherwise meaningful icons to sell $850 pants!  We can dupe women into thinking they’re honoring my legacy when really, they’€™re just following trends like sheep!  Yes, we can render a symbol of female equality totally meaningless!”

Marie Claire Editor: "Self-Acceptance" Courtesy of a Scalpel?

Although we briefly noted Marie Claire’s April cover line “My 12-Grape Diet” on Monday, we hadn’t yet read the story.  But an intriguing tip landed in our inbox today, prompting us to take a look.   If our correspondent is correct, what we found was rather distressing.

The essay, penned by the magazine’s new style director Cleo Glyde, starts off on a bad note.  It’s titled

Failure to Lunch

because, apparently, starving yourself to fit an abstract ideal of beauty is hilarious.

In the story, Cleo discusses her modeling career and her concurrent struggle to stay skinny.  When she quits the biz, she seesaws the opposite direction, developing a weight problem as she eats to compensate for lost time.

Finally, though, she arrives at what seems to be a fairly reasonable conclusion:

The only real silver bullet was the discovery of my “happy weight” many cities and years later, back home in Sydney: swimming, bush-walking, playing with my son—happy and in love.  While I focused on other things, my body naturally stabilized at exactly where it’s meant to be: size 12.  And I have come to relish my big ol’ womanly curves…I believe a mantra of self-acceptance needs to be put out there.  Once you make your peace with who you naturally are, life’s an incredible feast.

Sure, we’re dubious about the effectiveness of love as a weight loss technique, and it’s grating to be preached to about self-acceptance in a magazine that continues to feature agonizingly thin models, but good for Cleo, right?

Not so fast.  Our tipster tells us it wasn’t “bush-walking” alone that got Cleo down to her “meant to be” size.  Rather,

“She in fact arrived at [her current weight] after not one but two lipo operations.”

So much for self-acceptance!  We can’t vouch for the veracity of the claim, but if it is indeed true, then Marie Claire’s publication of this piece is troubling.  It’s not surprising that anyone in the beauty business has had work done, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with liposuction or plastic surgery, per se.  But it’s massively hypocritical to proclaim your body “naturally stabilized” at a particular weight if, in fact, your “big ol’ womanly curves” were sculpted by a surgeon.  And it would be even more disingenuous to preach the gospel of self-acceptance if your own sense of self-worth relied upon the surgical extraction of fat.

She writes:

Has the tyranny of the super-skinny silhouette gone too far?

Had she written about undergoing liposuction as part of her quest, we’d have found that admirable. But the lack of open discussion about cosmetic surgery (in general) only cultivates unrealistic beauty standards.  If Cleo Glyde had work done, yet continues to affirm her body “naturally” reached its current condition, then not only is she complicit in promoting the standards she struggled with, she’s maintaining that same tyranny this essay claims to combat.

Allure: No, We Still Don't Feel Sorry for You

We were paralyzed by indecision when faced with the March issue of Allure.  Which pressing problem deserved our attention first?  Should we brace ourselves for the no-doubt serious investigation into the mysterious disappearance of “Hollywood’s underpants,” or should we skip to the sure-to-be-obnoxious
Michelle Pfeiffer story?

No contest, really.

We know we come off a bit shrill every time we complain about this, but what is up with the recent spate of beautiful women lamenting how difficult it is to be gorgeous?  Sure, it may be rough to be so good-looking that no one takes you seriously, but it’s totally disingenuous to complain about that and then turn around and make your living off your looks.  (Small but important distinction: We’re not saying that maybe these women aren’t treated unfairly.  We’re saying we don’t want to hear about it while they’re posing for magazines.)  Sorry, but we just can’t bring ourselves to get worked up over stuff like the cover line:

“Beautiful Women Tend to Get Used”

As if being used only happens to beautiful women.

In fact, Pfeiffer explains in considerable detail, beauty was, at times, the very element that thwarted both her career and her personal life.  “When I was coming up in the business, beautiful actresses weren’t really ‘in,’” Pfeiffer recalls…“So I felt then like a lot of women these days feel in a man’s business world: I felt I had to be better than the competition,” Pfeiffer explains.

So let’s get this straight.  She doesn’t want to be evaluated solely on the basis of her looks, but then complains when she can’t use her appearance to land roles?

“When I was doing Frankie and Johnny, that was one of the biggest criticisms: that you couldn’t believe me in the part,” she says resignedly.  “And my argument is always, ‘You know everyone can be damaged.  And pretty people can be just as damaged as ugly people or fat people.’”

We love that she lumps “fat people” in a whole separate category, because apparently someone can’t be both overweight and pretty.  She continues:

“And in some ways, more,” she adds, her face earnest.  “Because beautiful women tend to get used.  And sometimes, their self-esteem is so wrapped up in the way they look that they allow themselves to be victimized much more than somebody whose self-worth isn’t all wrapped up in the face or their body.”

Well, there’s something we agree with.  Life probably is easier for women who bother to develop a personality.

Now that three different celebrities have complained about this in print, we wonder if there may be some validity to their gripes.  But we also wonder how Hollywood’s underwear is faring, because we wish we’d read that story instead.

Previously: Marie Claire: A Model Carps, We Cringe; Vogue's Sob Story: It's Not Easy Being Pretty

Marie Claire Has 20/20 Vision, Is Still Short-Sighted

Even though we wear glasses, we weren’t exactly thrilled to pieces with the beauty story “Specs Appeal” from Marie Claire’s March issue.  Why, other than the pun in the title we’ve seen a thousand times over?

This:

Coordinate your eye makeup with the season’s hottest new accessory, and baby, u got the look!

And u got clear vision, too! Glasses are, like, way more practical than those Lucite-heel Marc Jacobs shoes on page 66!

Note:  They really did spell “you” that way in what we can only assume was a vague—and lame—reference to an eye chart.  We can’t make this stuff up.

Previously: InStyle did the same stupid thing about glasses as a fashion accessory.  When they stop writing about it, we’ll stop complaining about it.

Marie Claire: A Model Carps, We Cringe

We apologize for the hiccup in our coverage yesterday.  Would you believe that we were so upset by the February issue of Marie Claire that we couldn’t stop crying long enough to face the keyboard?  No?  Okay.  But we were troubled by this bit about 41-year-old model Paulina Porizkova in “Gorgeous—At Any Age”:

When Paulina Porizkova moans, “No one flirts with me anymore,” photographer Alexei Hay smiles, knowing everyone in his studio has flirted with her all day, and the beauty icon is just being her ballsy old self.

Let’s not even get into why a word that means “gutsy” refers to male genitalia.

Sorry, but we fail to see what, exactly, is so brave about Porizkova’s comment.  Is it the flat-out lying?  Is it the vanity so extreme that she whines when no one—“not even cab drivers,” she says—notices her beauty? 

What’s truly bold here—and, yes, truly appalling—is the audacity to complain that her beauty is “being taken away” when that apparently fading beauty still pays the bills.    She’s doing a photo shoot for a major magazine, and she thinks no one notices that she’s a beautiful woman?  Cry us a river, Paulina.

Even more nervy is that Marie Claire follows that diva fit with “What I Love About Me,” wherein non-models discuss their best features.  If the magazine is so keen on women accepting themselves—a worthy campaign, to be sure—they ought to spare us the supermodels caterwauling about their looks.

InStyle's Mission: Saving Us From Spinsterhood

From InStyle’s “The Look,” February:

We’re also seeing a spike in the shoulders and a softer, more fluid reworking of last season’s mutton sleeves on schoolmarmish tops.  (You’re forgiven if you bought one, but you didn’t wear it on a date, did you?)  [emphasis ours]

Right.  How could we have forgotten?  We women are supposed to choose our clothing solely to look attractive to men, because our appearance is really the only thing we have to offer!  Nothing could be worse than wearing an unflattering mutton-sleeve top on a date, which almost certainly would doom us to dying alone and unloved.

Sheesh.  They are joking, right?

This isn’t InStyle’s first insinuation that women should dress to snare a man and that, without the proper clothing, garnering any kind of romantic attention would be nearly impossible.  Either they truly believe this garbage, or they just don’t know any better.  We don’t know which is worse.

Bazaar Bogged Down by Brand Names

Bazaar’s “Luxury Report,” January, left us with a bad taste in our mouth. The section started off typically enough, spotlighting—among other astronomically priced accessories—an $8,800 Michael Kors bag, a “price upon request” vintage Ralph Lauren necklace, and a $25,900 Hermès cuff. 

The section veered into a well-researched article by Dana Thomas about children forced into labor to manufacture counterfeit goods. We questioned why this article would be lumped into the “Luxury Report,” but the reason became clear when we flipped past a Burberry ad and found this unsubtle reminder to buy genuine designer products:

Why Does It Cost So Much?

What makes the prices of the world’s most wanted pieces so high? Craftsmanship, quality, and exclusivity are just a few of the reasons. Here, a peek at what goes into making a luxury good.

So, in review, that’s a pictorial of envy-inducing, prohibitively expensive accessories. Ads from Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Coach (along with the aforementioned Burberry ad). An article explaining why counterfeit goods constitute a human-rights violation of massive proportions—which, we should make clear, is an argument with which we have no issue. And then a page explaining again exactly why it’s completely worthwhile to spend $895 on a pair of “chic” ballet flats.

See the problem here?

While we admire Bazaar’s revelation of the sleazy underbelly of counterfeit goods manufacturing, it totally undercuts Thomas’ reporting when her investigation is juxtaposed with a page explaining why charging $51,400 for a watch is justifiable.  Promoting luxury goods in the name of stopping child labor only detracts from the real issue—as if the galling practices in counterfeit-goods factories didn’t merit attention on their own. Would a story about children being sold into labor to make fake Burberrys be any less meaningful if you couldn’t then turn the page and behold a genuine Burberry? But Bazaar’s livelihood is inextricably intertwined with the financial security of name-brand advertisers, and that relationship is made all too clear in this short section.

Child labor is, indisputably, a terrible tragedy. But using a worthwhile article about the practice as an excuse to shill for $18,650 purses is absolutely revolting.

W: What's Wrong With Michael Kors? Play Along With Us!

When we were young, we spent a considerable amount of time staring at “What’s wrong with this picture?” brain teasers.  A perfectly normal scene in the pages of a puzzle book would soon reveal itself to be an absurdist masterpiece—it wasn’t long before we’d realize, “Oh!  That man is holding a banana to his ear instead of a phone!”

Little did we know that those puzzles also come in a grown-up text version—and in W, yet.  From a profile of Michael Kors, “Pop Kors,” December, comes this whopper of a word game:

He…happily endorses her penchant for the nip and tuck.  “If you can have your knees done and it allows you to wear a short skirt and you’re over 40, great!” he says.  As for naysayers, he adds, “It’s like saying, ‘Oh, I cut my foot and I refuse to use a Band-Aid.’  That’s moronic.  Use the Band-Aid.”

Oh, this looks like a challenging one.  All right, kids, let’s play!  How many completely invalid ideologies are espoused in this statement?  Here’s our list:

1.    Elective plastic surgery is as much of a no-brainer as applying a bandage.
2.    Women must have their knees surgically altered in order to wear a short skirt.
3.    Women over 40 shouldn’t wear short skirts.
4.    Aging women must have plastic surgery to remain aesthetically pleasing instead of just, you know, aging gracefully.  Or just plain aging.
5.    Opting out of plastic surgery is moronic.

Now it’s your turn to play along at home.  How many fallacies and logical errors did you find?

"Stalking" Male Models? Hilarious, Claims Elle

Do you remember MTV’s Daria? There’s a scene in the opening credits where the sardonic title character is sitting in a darkened movie theater. While everyone around her laughs uproariously, she stares blankly at the screen.

We felt a bit like Daria while reading Elle’s “Where the Boys Are,” December. We think writer Maggie Bullock’s exploits are supposed to be funny, but her story only made us queasy.

The tale: Inspired by a friend who habitua