I Am Not Tan

Usually, when I come back from a vacation, I’m tan. Not in this case. Of course, maybe next time, I should go to the British Virgin Islands, not the Big Apple. In a snow storm. After packing when the weather forecast said mid sixties and sunny.

On the upside, I now have a totally rocking pair of bright yellow, wedge-heeled galoshes that are so completely Amy I smile every time I look at them.

And I had lunch with Justine, and drinks with Marianne, and I forced my editor to battle tourists in Time Square, and I shopped ’til I dropped (this is especially amusing because I’m not what one would call a “shopper”), and I got made fun of by a shop clerk because I don’t know anything about designers and I fail to be impressed when she name drops — whereas I am completely impressed by pretty things and the people who make them. The conversation went something like this:

Clerk: This dress is made by BigName Designer. She’s incredibly sought-after.
Me: (thinking, “Shouldn’t ‘sought after’ be a term used to describe someone whose dresses I can’t just try on for the asking?”) Oh. That’s nice.
Clerk: Everyone wants one of her dresses.
Me: (thinking, “then why do you carry dresses by other designers?”) It’s very pretty.
Clerk: (clearly disappointed with my lack of awe) Well, ask your sister. She knows.
Future Sister-in-Law: (arriving in the dressing room) Ooh, pretty!

(FSIL was correct. The dress was indeed very pretty.)

Clerk: (to FSIL) Who did your dress?
FSIL: BigName Designer. It’s Style Name.
Clerk: (gushes) Oh, that’s what Celebrity’s Trophy Wife wore!

Now, my FSIL has a positively gorgeous dress. I love it. But I loved it even before I knew who had designed it, and I don’t love it any more now for knowing that a celebrity liked it as well. Which is why the clerk works in the fashion industry and I do not, and why I’m glad that the clerk works in the fashion industry and I do not.

I think I’m missing that gene. Which is not to say that I have no interest in fashion. I love pretty clothes, and I definitely prefer certain designers and lines over others. For instance, I buy a lot of my clothing at Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft. I like their style and I find that clothes made by that company fit my body type extremely well. I almost never buy anything at Banana Republic, who, as far as I can tell, make their clothes for people with no hips or waist and legs approximately seven feet long. But I would never buy clothes by a certain person or company just because it was made by that company. I like designers because I like their clothes, not the other way around.

Which is another reason that it bugs me when people assume that chick lit is all about fashion. Trust me, if that were the case, I’d never get into the genre!

I remember when my book came out reading someone saying that they usually aren’t interested in those “books about Manolo Blahniks.” That made me laugh. Amy is a strictly “jeans and sneakers” kind of girl. I don’t think she’d be able to spot a Manolo Blahnik unless it was in a box marked “Manolo Blahnik.” (I’m not even sure I’m spelling Manolo Blahnik correctly.) Her interest in clothing in the novel stretches to wearing a suit at an interview and making sure that her outfits comply with the “no metal” requirements of her society’s initiation rites. The only shoes she owns whose brand she can name are her yellow Converse All-Stars.

And now we’re full circle back to yellow shoes. I may have to take a picture of them so you can all appreciate how cool they are. (I may also have to find out who designed them.) I actually chose them over a pair of galoshes with little skulls and roses on it, which I thought were also pretty perfect from an SSG standpoint, but didn’t fit as well as the yellow ones.

These are the second pair of galoshes I can remember owning. The first are a pair of “cast to fit me” knee high snakeproof rubber Wellingtons I bought in Costa Rica. They’re the color of old tires. I think they might actually be made of old tires. Perhaps I’ll talk more about that in my upcoming blog entry “When Piranhas Attack!”

The winner of last week’s giveaway of SO NOT THE DRAMA is

MIRI

Congrats, Miri!