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It's A Lipstick Jungle Out There, Baby

Aside from The September Issue, I haven't been doing a lot of fashion writing... which is partly a reflection of how life has changed for me generally, and how not about the fashion and shopping world I can be these days.

That reality came home to me tonight when I joined Jennifer, spur of the moment and mostly by accident, and wound up in the middle of Fashion's Night Out.... when I played my role as The Gay (a/k/a that friend to straight women who helps with fashion, makeup and other lifestyle shopping).

Conceived as an "event night to spur shopping around the city," Fashion's Night Out was meant to lend some glitz and glamour to shopping that's been kind of missing, kick off New York Fashion Week, and hopefully reinvigorate the fall selling season, which is showing no more signs of a recovery than anything else this year (which is to say... you can find people shopping, just not many of them).

Jennifer and I were mainly concerned with solving her current dilemma - the arrival of Chanel's new Noir line of lipstick, three variations of the new vogue for black lipstick with red, brown and purple undertones. And Jennifer, feeling frustrated that she couldn't find one she liked, wanted to get a second opinion... and for the moment, mine would have to do.

It was quite fun, and I have to admit, they are three hard to wear shades - I'm not sure anyone can carry off the brown, the red looks muddy, and we tried the purple and the result was... well, intense. After some discussion - if you're ever in New York and go to Saks, girls, ask for Simone at Chanel - we tried adding some glossy lip laquer on top, and that seemed to work (Official recipe: Hysteria lipstick, Dragon lip lacquer, and Vamp pencil for a good line). But Jennifer balked at multiple products and such a complicated routine... and I can't say I blamed her, though it wore well and looked fierce.

Looking fierce, really, was the order of the evening; lots of people traipsed around the stores as if it were a night at the club, and in many ways it was. The music was loud, free booze samples were available for the (very) patient, and people meandered everywhere... but there wasn't much real shopping that we saw, and pretty much every salesperson we saw, and knew, called the night basically a bust. "If we were selling hot dogs and funnel cake, we'd be doing well" one high end accessories seller said to us.

As a people watching event, the night was fun enough, kind of absurd, kind of surreal, never dull. Barneys, especially on the main level, was quite vivid. But it was also tiring, and in the end I felt for the workers more than the supposed customers: there's so much that's just not working right now in retail (and I mean the double entendre of employment, too), and a sense of desperation to the night that no one could shake.

Jennifer and I wondered if this will be repeated - if it is, I think we'll try harder to chase down Anna Wintour - and I have my doubts; Fashion Week doesn't need it, the retailers won't probably want it, and the fashion types who showed up can easily be convinced to come to other, more productive events (ones where store and label executives don't stand around, nervously fidgeting and looking uncomfortable).

Mostly I was reminded tonight, often pleasantly, of a life I used to lead, and have largely left behind. I miss it, sort of... but a little of this sort of energy goes a long, long, way. I'd rather save the fancy outfit - and the three step lipstick application - for a fun night with good friends, and probably something low key, if I had my drothers. It's a lipstick jungle out there in fashionland... and baby, we're all just brightly colored animals, if you know what I mean.

Morning Morsels: The Saturday Unsurprise

Mostly, it's a Hollywood Minute:

• News story we didn't bother reading: Noel Gallagher Leave Oasis Over Fallout With Brother
• News Story we did wind up reading, but pretty much turned out to be what we thought: DJ AM found dead in New York apartment
• But if you really want to fry your brain, try and figure out why anyone would care what Heidi Montag thinks about Brody Jenner getting tasered during a fight with Joe Francis (no bonus points fo asking "who?" to any of them)
• Okay seriously... you are going to see The September Issue, right?
• Gail Collins fears the robot menace. Why don't you?

A Whole New World

Mom and I had some time to kill yesterday before Julie and Julia, and we spent it... at the mall.

It's almost quaint, now, to remember how the mall culture was... back then. Back before. Walking around the mall, I said to Mom that I thought the economic downturn would be a massive shock to the system - a sudden reordering of our economic realities... and I'd failed to realize that the change would actually be slow and gradual.

We are, really, in a whole new world. You can see it at the mall, though I don't know if most people look at what's not happening rather than what is. Still, it's not hard to feel the energy level that's changed, the way Shopping as Entertainment has become, already, a thing of our past. The stores aren't crowded. The halls of the mall aren't crowded. People have errands to run, things to do... they really don't just stay and linger... hence, I think, why some of the earliest indications of struggle at the mall turns out to be in the food courts.

Sale signs are everywhere. Sales people have that mixed look of desperation and boredom; when we needed an umbrella (it started to pour as we prepared to leave), a woman in the fragrance department of Nordstrom practically tackled us to make the sale. Not in her department. (I know, that's part of the Nordy way, but still; you could sense her eagerness to make a sale, any sale.)

And this was the high end mall - the one with Neiman's and Nordstrom and 60 upscale stores... and as I said to Mom, might be a salvageable mall if it had about half the square footage and stores. 

Let's be clear: people are shopping. The world has not ended. There were people with bags, there were, clearly, some folks a little late on getting the memo that the party's over on shop til you drop. But the world has changed. Less shopping. Less need for stuff. Less interest in spending the day wandering the mall. Get what you need, get it on sale... and then go home.

This is what I'm keeping in mind as people talk about a "mild recovery" or some sign of "bottoming out" - we may have reached the bottom of... something (though I'd keep an eye on whether anything imrpoves in housing foreclosures and loan refinances... because so far, that mess seems as bad as ever). But "Bottoming out" doesn't mean "it's over." It means we have to figure out what's salvageable from the wreckage. And it means we'll still see a lot of continuing pain - stores closing, more layoffs, more people facing a job market that shows no sign of turning around soon. All the things that drove our crazy consumerist economy - the advertsing in the glossy mags, the mags themselves, the unneeded clothes and computers and toys in all those unneeded stores... all of that is grinding down. And it's not done. Not by a long shot.

I don't mind this new world, though - the mall wasn't so crowded, window shopping was as amusing as ever, and I did get a nice umbrella out of it. It is, though, a new world. And I don't think we really know where to even begin mapping it out, or make sense of it. Not yet, anyway.

Eat It

The blogosphere, I expect, will all have to weigh in on Michael Pollan's musings in this week's New York Times Magazine - it's a thin week, and there's little else to do at the beach house or the country house... or wherever upscale yuppies drive to just outside the city. Myself, I think Pollan's finally given himself away, and offered little in the way of useful rethinking about food and cooking.

Up to a point. I think my main objection to Pollan's sour take - that we don't cook anymnore and the culture encourages us not to - is just that so many of us try to fight against just such certainties. I like to cok, I always have. When I was 12, I had to fight the traditional gendered expectations of my junior high teachers and Administration to get a place taking Home Economics, rather than shop. I wasn't likely to do carprentry... but I did have to cook weekly meals for my family since my mom worked.

Although I'm not a huge cooking fan of Julia Child (I've never made a French Chef recipe, and I tend to agree the kind of French cooking she espoused is somewhat passe), I watched the show and I agree with the assessment of others - and the coming Julie and Julia movie - that The French Chef made you feel good about wanting to cook. Listening to Julia Child's passion and her enthusiasm... who didn't want to at least try?

At the same time, though, I think Pollan is laboring through some dull preconceptions that one doesn't have to share - his sense that Child pushed creative cooking on the "Feminine Mystique" generation of early second wave feminists feels forced. I don't remember it that way, and I think, as both my mom and her sister noted, the complexities of cooking in their day was as much involved as any sense of dawning feminism; and Pollan undercuts himself by admitting that most of us, not just women, and not even just women working outside the home, take much less time to cook than we have in the past.

I agree with Pollan that the Food Channel has moved away from celebrating cooking to celebrating eating, with similarly disastrous results; and that its selling of "celebrity chefs" is weird and off putting (though I think his generous descriptions of Emeril Legasse as genius are a stretch; I've eaten in Emeril's restaurants, and they're okay, but not overwhelming). But who's watching? As much as my foodie friends know the Food Network shows... they're cooking lives come from other sources and inspirations. Pollan says nothing about the interest in cookbooks or the success of an outlet like Williams Sonoma, key indicators of the culture of cooking, I think, is still out there.

Yes, we have a culture focused on quick cook colutions, fast eating, and often unhealthy options. But, as Pollan is quick to lecture us, we have a corporate dominated food production complex to congratulate for that, and while all the negative aspects need to be shown, it's also the case that Pollan's arguments for local growing and sustainable food policies don't sell well, partly because they seem superior and classist. We didn't all grow up in a home where Mom stayed home, watched the French Chef and followed Julia Child. And our food realities kind of have to accept that, like it or not, we have a culture bias to seeing cooking as cumbersome and time consuming... and a function, often, of class.

Fixing our food issues- getting better agricultural policies, helping to encourage more people to cook their own food (it actually helps diet) more and with more natural ingredients - are important, and worthwhile goals. How we do it, I think, is indeed embodied in Julia Child - it's passionate, it's positive, and it leaves room for people to mess up and go their own way. That Pollan can't quite see that - or can't quiet figure out how to encourage it - is, I think, indicative of where the "food movement" is going wrong. And as long as he's here to harangue us about not being good enough... I suspect a ;lot of people will just want to stay on the couch that much longer, eating it.

Bush, Whacked

One post seems to lead to another in the oddest ways, these days... while checking out Andrew Sullivan's thoughts on the latest gay issues, I tripped over an odd new marketing attempt: selling shavers to guys who want to landscape... er, manscape... er, well, you get the picture.

And if you don't get the picture... let Phillips and Gillette draw one for you:

Honestly... I have nothing to add... or subtract. Well, yes, I do shave... but I just went out and bought one of those Venus-lady things.  Works great. Life is much easier (maybe even a little cheaper), when you don't get hung up on gendered expectations (although, to be honest... my Venus is reassuringly blue).

Where Credit Is Due

"Necessary" and "Evil" have always pretty much summed up my thinking on credit cards.

The passage on Tuesday of some mild regulations for the credit industry may be hailed as a breakthrough - all the dark muttering that banks wanted to stay unregulated strikes me as more sabre rattling than true - but the real credit card "reform" we have to go through as a nation is about us, the consumers. And because of that, I think the bill becomes the excuse that will drive a huge decrease in credit cards and credit card use.

And it won't be pretty.

Passing the bill - which seems to be mostly "you need to tell people before you rob them!" type rules - sort of guarantees that any talk of recovery is premature. Our economy has been fueled, for close to 30 years, by excessive consumption (cue "The Story of Stuff"), and that consumption, in turn, was made possible through easy credit. Tightening rules on credit cards, which in turn will reduce the availability of easy credit at absurd rates, basically guarantees that we can't shop our way out of recession (although my friend Jennifer is willing to shoulder that burden for many of us). :)

As you might guess, I haven't really been a fan, or extremely partisan when it comes to the credit card bill. Although I think some "rules of the road" would be helpful, I also think this is one area where government regulation looks more like meddling than medicine - force feeding specific interest rates, or specific approaches to billing, don't necessarily reflect a good understanding of how credit works, but more a kind of popularity contest to attract voters (we forced them to make your credit card candy tastier!).

Deserts... Oases... And Other Fantastic Lands

I finally bit the bullet this week and registered over at Change.org; I encourage you to do the same (though a certain regular reader/writer got there well before me). As a result, I've been, er, exposed to a lot of new ideas, people, and discussions, now that I can comment to my little heart's content (plus, I need a new conversation place... Ezra's just not doing it like he used to).

One of Red's fellow guest posters, Greg Plotkin, has been taking up the topic of food and poverty. In a fairly provocative post, he recently suggested that, despite serious misgivings, it might be worth considering that Wal Mart's foray into the Chicago city market might not be a bad thing, given the problem with "food deserts" in an urban area like Chicago, where access to fresh groceries is very limited.

This has led to an interesting discussion of the various ways to look at Wal Mart... but it got me wondering... just what are we dealing with in this notion of food deserts? I said as much to Greg:

I also have to be honest: I'm skeptical of the "food desert" issue; while I've seen some indication of challenges finding groceries in some neighborhoods, when I lived in New York, I also find it overstated - Manhattan lacks large grocery stores all over, because of space limitations; only in the past 15 years or so did I see new building construction really adapt to the need for groceries anywhere. In Harlem, much as anywhere, there are places to get groceries. They're not all great, they're not all great on price... but they are there. And they were there.

Greg replied:

Weboy, if you want to read the whole Chicago "food desert" report you can find it here:  http://www.marigallagher.com/projects/

So I went... and that led to some interesting avenues.

Let's See If You Believe In Me...

Back in the summer, when Obama clinched the nomination, J in Baltimore asked me to expand on a thought I'd offered in this post back when Oprah endorsed Barack Obama - now that he'd won, would she be affected? How would her own place in the culture be changed?

I've thought about that question a lot - that's the nature of having my best friend challenge me - but didn't have a complete answer. Then, on election night, TV cameras found a teary-eyed Oprah deeply moved by Obama's speech, and I knew I had to revisit the topic.

But something else happened along the way: apparently, Oprah' personal struggle with her weight reached a crisis point, and that has become her new crusade.

And in it, I think, is the problem and promise of Oprah's current celebrity.

Stylin', Profilin'... Just Not Buyin'...

Still trying to wend my way through the financial crisis, I think I'd better keep working sideways and talk a little about fashion. While the bloodbath in retail is its own disaster, the implications for the fashion business are in some ways, worse.

With so many people focused on big, permanent things like homes and cars, it's easy to miss that the real story of the last ten years in commerce has been the luxury goods market, especially in clothing and accessories. Luxury was considered bulletproof; even during the last recession, the rich - and those who aspire - kept the luxury goods business humming along.

That, of course, has come to a grinding halt; though I didn't witness it, one of the newest legends to arise out of this year's Black Friday was a different kind of death: a scary, crazy run on sale goods at Saks Fifth Avenue's main store in Manhattan, that had the store looking more like Loehmann's than an upscale department store. Though SFA execs weren't talking much, it seems clear that retailers are freaked about going into next year with too much merchandise on hand, and well before the traditional January clearance sales, prices have been slashed, even below 50%.

That doesn't necessarily make for value - despite deep cuts, many luxury goods were still selling for hundreds of dollars, out of reach for many (and available to most only on extended credit). Even the snapping up of "crazy" bargains can't necessarily last - consumer credit has already tightened, and with the coming run of job losses and economic distress, few will open up their wallets like they have in the past.

An era - the era of crazed consumption - is probably over.

In Defense Of Presents (Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String)

Don't say you haven't heard it: the word this season is that austerity and frugality are in. Lavishness is out. And that means... no presents.

All around me, never mind in the papers, I've heard stories of "let's not do presents this year." Gifts, of any sort are passe. Extravagant. Wasteful.

Poppycock.

It's true that these times, clearly call for scaling back. No more absurdities. Someone should call Lexus about that whole "big bow on the car" thing, surely. But no presents? Uh-uh.

It's true that our consumerist society has gotten well out of hand. We are in a financial crisis, it's very clear, in no small measure because people kept spending past the point of all rationality. Easy credit and too many incentives to spend led to all sorts of excess. And it's time to scale back.

But not give up entirely. A gift is not the only way to say I love you, or I appreciate you, or anything else. But a gift is... a gift. It is not about the recipient. At heart the gift is given. And it is the spirit of giving which we - which I - celebrate.

My whole life - no giggling - is about giving. I want to help others. Support those I care about. Give of myself until there's (almost) nothing left to give. For a long time, I really did, to the point that I was hurting myself in being there for anyone but myself. I don't do that now. But I do give. Of myself. Of my time. And I give presents.

No, I will not donate to charity in your name. You are what I'm worried about. You are someone I care about. I give to good causes. And you should to. But a gift to charity is not a gift to you... and let's not pretend otherwise (and PS, at my grave, send flowers).

So just a heads-up: I will be giving gifts. They may be small.  They may be less than I would have in the past. But giving is not about you, the "no presents" people - it's so not about you. It's about us, the givers. We give without expectation of anything in return. We give because we like to, because in a society where most of us take more than we should, it's good to give something away. And I'm giving it to you.

Plus I love the look on your face when you're staring down wrapping paper and a bow. It's a present. It's a gift. Let it in. Enough wit the "no presents." Lighten up. Celebrate the season. Don't punish it. Or yourself. Or me. Let's give presents. Let's remember what giving is. I think, in the long run, it will help us all.

(PS, although I disagree with No Impact Man on Christmas, and quibble with his blog generally, this and this both got me to thinking. I highly recommend checking them out.)