The Asylum (4 page)

I took my seat in a strange little angled pew. I looked up and gulped. I was seated facing Jackie Onassis, just three feet away. She was a longtime friend of DV's and had been the recipient of much fashion advice, most especially after becoming First Lady. The depth of their friendship was more than apparent during the memorial: Jackie O sobbed openly throughout. Afterward, I heard socialite Pat Buckley telling somebody, “Jackie always cries at funerals because she was not allowed to cry at Jack's.”

Chills.

Vreeland got the send-off she deserved. She was the empress to end all empresses. With her mind-blowingly unconventional worldview, she understood that fashion was more than just smart dressing for rich ladies. She knew the importance of panache and eccentricity, and of adding a dash of vulgarity to the mix: “A little bad taste,” she said, “is like a nice splash of paprika.”

Where did all those dictatorial divas go? Do we have a Vreeland for the twenty-first century?

The truth is that the empress is, in the twenty-first century, as dead as the dodo. The world has changed. Gals no longer need provocation or liberating edicts from a crazy old broad who wore her hair in a jet-black helmet that resembled a chic beetle. Thanks to Vreeland and her ilk, they are already free.

Vreeland liberated women from the oppression of girdles and white gloves. She gave them a sense of creative possibilities. We live in the era of self-expression and rabid individuality which Vreeland dreamed about and helped create. Yes, there are status-obsessed real housewives who are conformist and dreary, but they pale in comparison to the hordes of liberated, groovy chicks and eccentric gals. If Vreeland were alive today, she would look at Ke$ha and Tavi and Nicki and Gaga and Florence and Gwen and Daphne and Riri and Tilda—and yes, even Miley and Kat von D.—with amusement and satisfaction. Mission accomplished.

MY MATERNAL
Irish grandfather
may have had no teeth, no impulse control, and no money, but he did have one saving grace. He had a great way with words, and by a great way with words I mean to say that he had an impressive repertoire of jarring and unsavory expressions. And no matter how plastered he was, no matter how many vats of Guinness had gone down his gullet, no matter how irate or dégagé he was, Gramps never lost the ability to regurgitate one of his signature snappy phrases at exactly the right conversational juncture.

Unsurprisingly, many of these expressions centered around the word “arse.” Examples include the following:

“That's a boil far from my arse.”

“You know as much about [insert topic here] as my arse knows about snipe shooting.” Example: “You know as much about the Panama Canal as my arse knows about snipe shooting.”

“My arse in parsley!”

The latter expression was ol' Grampy's equivalent of “balderdash!” and was used when he had lost the inclination to continue an argument.

Then there were expressions which were utilized while dissecting a pal or an enemy in absentia. This was the “that bastard” group.

“That bastard has long pockets and short arms.”

“That bastard would drink beer out of a shitey rag.”

While many of his expressions focused on the less-than-positive attributes of the male species, women were by no means overlooked. If, for example, a drinking pal predeceased his wife then Grandpa might say, “That bastard preferred the boards,” indicating that the gentleman in question found it preferable to be nailed into a wooden coffin and flung in the cold earth rather than continue cohabiting with his charmless harridan of a wife.

If the charmless harridan was prone to weeping, Grampy would shake his head, roll his eyes, swallow a mouthful of Guinness, exhale heartily and declare, “Auch! Her bladder is way too near her eyeballs.”

Of all Grandpa's expressions, this gem concerning bladders and eyeballs is the one that has stayed with me. I call upon it with startling regularity. It has been far more useful than I would ever have imagined. During my life, I have frequently had occasion to speculate about the proximity of bladders and eyeballs. In my chosen milieu, there is no shortage of lachrymose females and males. Simply put, we fashion people cannot stop crying.

Before I entered the fashion asylum, I used to cry, but only very occasionally. I remember crying at the end of
Imitation of Life
, when Mahalia Jackson sings “Trouble of the World” at Annie's funeral. By the time she was belting out “There'll be no more a-weepin' and a-wailin',” I was doing just that, right along with Sandra Dee and Lana Turner.

I cried when I first saw Doris Day sing “Secret Love” in
Calamity Jane
. There's Calam, all spiffed up in her western man drag, looking for all intents and purposes like an extremely attractive butch lesbian, singing her heart out about a secret love which “became impatient to be free.” The next minute she's shouting it from the highest hill and even telling the golden daffodil. It's a beautiful hymnal homage to all the inverts throughout history who were forced to hide their proclivities and sit on their emotions.

Though prone to these occasional moments of sentimentality, I never thought my bladder was abnormally near my eyeballs. I never imagined that I would . . . Oh! The shame of it! . . .
cry at fashion shows.

It all started in the late 1980s.

I was attending the European Collections for the first time. I was seated front row at Giorgio Armani. Though I never wore Armani clothing myself—that longer, drapey cut is a disaster for the altitudinally disadvantaged—I was barely able to contain my feelings of Euro-fizzy excitement. Images of a greige-linen-clad Richard Gere, futzing and primping his way through
American Gigolo
, spooled through my head. My anticipation reached orgasm level when I found myself seated directly opposite the legendary Elsa Klensch.

Elsa who?

Elsa Klensch is part of fashion history. She was the first fashion TV media icon. Back in the day, back before fashion had become a culturally central global obsession, back before
Sex and the City
and
Ugly Betty
, back before
Project Runway
, back when
Roseanne
was the most stylish show on TV, there was only one program dedicated to fashion.
One
. And Elsa Klensch was the host thereof.

Elsa's show was called
Style with Elsa Klensch.
With her glossy brunette bob and dramatically contour-blushed cheeks, the well-spoken Elsa was the absolute tits. Every Sunday morning hungover fashion addicts would set their alarm clocks and tune in to CNN to watch La Klensch's overview of the fashion scene, all delivered in her trademark Aussie posh-lady drawl.

“This week we're going to the home of Krizia designer Mariuccia Mandelli” became, in Elsa-speak, “Theese wick we're geeowing to the heeome of Kreezia dezahner Meeyarryoocheeya Meendeellee.”

Do not think for a moment that I am mocking her. Elsa was major. How major? The following brief digression will, hopefully, provide the answer to this question.

Back in the era of Elsa, I lived in one large room in lower Manhattan. Having grown up in a labyrinthine rooming house packed with batty relatives and lodgers—and one toilet—I had always fantasized about inhabiting one large, serene room. At an impressionable age I had seen the Agnès Varda movie titled
Cléo de 5 à 7
, about an actress who lives in one square white room. This culty gem became the blueprint for my future. I saw myself living a life of unconventional
nouvelle vague
abandon, just like the überchic heroine. Fantasy aside, a one-room pad always made sense to me. As Quentin Crisp once said, “I like living in one room and have never known what people do with the room they're not in.”

Directly opposite my groovy miniloft was a Japanese restaurant which I patronized on a regular basis, as did many fashion folk. Among the dessert offerings was a wholesome concoction named “fruit crunch.” Struggling, and failing, to pronounce the
r
's, the Asian server would always refer to it as “fluit clunch.” For me and my fashion pals, this was irresistible: we renamed it “Elsa Klunch.”
That's
how mega Elsa was, back in the day.

“Two Elsa Klunches, please!”

It's a stupid story but it does illustrate just how iconic Elsa had become.

So there I was sitting opposite Ms. Fluit Klunch at the Giorgio Armani show, worshipping the magnificence of fashion's only TV pundit and feeling overwhelmed by my Elsa proximity.

The show begins.

The parade of cadaverous beauties starts to slither down the runway. The operatic music soars. There is an exquisite melancholy perfection to the unsmiling faces and the flawlessly tailored garments. The models appear hauntingly and gorgeously doomed, like Dominique Sanda in
The Conformist
or Charlotte Rampling in
The Damned.

About halfway through the show, I look across at Elsa and I notice that her face is suddenly crumpling. Before long, a large mascara-streaked tear makes its way down her rouged face.

What gives?

Is her bladder too near her eyeballs?

“Maybe her TV show got cancelled,” suggests an adjacent colleague.

“Maybe it's that time of the month,” conjectures a more sympathetic voice.

I do not say anything, for I find, much to my surprise, that I too have become teary.

When I get outside into the cold, polluted light of the Milanese winter, I suddenly feel bizarre and ridiculous. What on earth had come over me? I am so ashamed. Whatever would grumpy, super-butch, toothless Gramps have made of his effete grandchild, blubbering at a fashion show? Clearly my bladder must have migrated to within a millimeter of my eyeballs.

As more shows unfurled, this illogical weeping reoccurred. I moistened at Moschino. I grieved at Givenchy. If there was a bridal finale, forget about it, especially if the no-longer-in-the-first-flush-of-youth designer accompanied the bride.

And I was by no means the only one. At Yves Saint Laurent
les clients
, rows and rows of them, all clutched their
mouchoirs
as Monsieur Saint Laurent took his bows.

Another and much more important digression: Let's take a moment to talk about
les clients.

Back in the day,
les clients
had pride of place at every fashion show. The most important women in the room were the loyal chicks who opened their handbags and actually purchased the clothes . . . at full retail, I might add! At some point in the nineties, designers decided that the paying clients were less important than bold-faced notables and entertainment celebrities. So the broads who paid full price were displaced by the freebie-demanding generation of A-, B-, and J-listers.

Unfair and illogical, right?

The high-fashion world turned into a gifting suite, a place where beautiful clothes are given or loaned to the only people who can afford them . . . and actually
need
them.

And what of
les clients
?

Fortunately there are still women who pay full retail. In my current role as Creative Ambassador at Barneys, I get to travel to the stores and meet these chicks . . . and pay homage to them. In a world where more and more gals are looking for a “press discount” or a “loaner,” the women who are happy and willing to pay full retail are the fashion equivalent of angel investors. If there were any justice in the world, they would be back front and center at every fashion show.

Off the soapbox and back to my bladder.

As I flew home after that first trip, I reflected upon my emotional volatility. What had brought my bladder into such close proximity to my eyeballs? And why were so many other people crying too? Was it group hysteria?

Upon reflection, I realized that what I had experienced was peculiar to La Mode. It is a runway-specific emotion. Let's call it
fashion verklempt.

Over the years I have been able to observe the
fashion verklempt
phenomenon repeatedly, both in myself and others. I have tried without success to isolate the triggers for these tear-jerking moments.

Jetlag is definitely a factor. I can't recall ever having cried during the New York fashion shows, most of which take place within shrieking distance of my abode.

Music is a factor. Whether anthemic or operatic, cheerfully folksy or grungily forlorn, there are many genres which can precipitate the
fashion verklempt
phenomenon.

In certain specific instances, the fashion-show soundtrack has had the effect of making me cry . . . with laughter. Two occasions spring to mind.

In the early nineties I was sitting at the Chanel show. These were startling, fabulously frenetic affairs. Glamazons like Christy, Linda, Cindy, Naomi, Marpessa, Veronica and Tatiana careened up and down the runways in chaotic, laughing, posing, vamping groups. This was before the grim mechanical goose-stepping trend which now dominates every runway show. (A journalist recently asked me if I thought the runway models of the future would be robots rather than humans. “You clearly have not been to a fashion show in a while,” I replied, adding, “The Cylons are already here.”)

The Chanel soundtrack consisted, in this particular instance, of mashed-up, sampled music clearly put together by somebody with great flair but a limited knowledge of English. I base this conclusion on the fact that the music-meister elected to incorporate a pornographically abrasive rant. It was a dirty ditty sung by Marianne Faithfull and titled “Why D'Ya Do It?”

Watching the English speakers in attendance—including the UK and American press—wincing repeatedly as Marianne Faithfull railed at her lover about some chick with “cobwebs up her fanny” and demanded to know why he “spit on her snatch” was an exquisitely amusing
Ab Fab
moment.

A similar
folie musicale
occurred at a men's Armani show around the same time. The DJ decided to sample the soundtrack of a Derek Jarman movie. The phrase “rosy-cheeked choirboys in semen-stained cassocks” played over and over again as the handsome besuited young lads walked the runway. While the Asian contingents respectfully watched the show with inscrutable expressions on their faces, we English speakers wept with mirth.

Speaking of choirboys: There was one memorable occasion when I totally lost it. My bladder and my eyeballs finally merged. It happened at a late-nineties Junya Watanabe show. The soundtrack was supplied by a pink-cheeked prepubescent English choirboy. Live and in person, the young lad sang hauntingly beautiful Elizabethan songs—a cappella, no mike—while the avant-garde Watanabe creations floated past. There was something overwhelmingly touching about his earnestness, and about that impossibly perfect voice which was just months away from cracking and disappearing into the mists of time. Blub. Blub.

The biggest group weep fest—the wailing wall of the
fashion verklempt
—occurred at the 1989 Romeo Gigli show. Mr. Gigli was one of the most influential fashion designers of the late twentieth century. He popularized a whole new wrappy way of dressing women. His color palate—dusky maroon, Moroccan apricot, cat-poo brown and acid green—had such far-reaching influence that even the famous Gap pocket T's began to be hued accordingly. He introduced nifty suit cuts, flat-front narrow pants, and sumptuous colors and fabrics for men. Like Christian Lacroix, he burned very bright and made a huge impact.

Back to the weep fest.

The Carrousel du Louvre was filled with a soaring Verdi soundtrack. The models wore majestic robes in rich browns and burgundys. The entire collection was inspired by the mosaics of Ravenna depicting the wild and mysterious Empress Theodora of Byzantium. The gals were festooned with necklaces made from oversize handblown Murano glass beads. Each wrapped and draped outfit was more stately than the next. The presentation was impressive, so impressive that, come the finale, the audience was delivering a standing ovation and weeping, weeping, weeping. Even the hard-boiled retailers were
fashion verklempt
.