I was getting dressed for the evening.  Gave myself a blow dry which may I add can be as claming as meditating.  Out of nowhere Pip peeked her head in.  "How's it all going Santa, are you alright?"

I let her know I was more than alright and as she was rushing out, as always, 

I asked her, "Who are those two guys I saw you walking with earlier?"

"Two guys?"

"Yes Pip, two guys."

"Oh.  The older one was an acquaintance of my Dad.  The other is his son."

"He's attractive," was my response. 

"Is he?"

I looked at her and shook my head, "You know Pip, all this cloak and dagger activity can be unhealthy after so much of it for so long."

"You don't understand."

"No.  Maybe I don't.  I don't know what it's like to lose a Dad."

"It sucks."

"I'm sorry.  And I'm sorry you have no relief from pain."

Quietly she said, "Fuck the pain."

"One day Pip, I'm worried all the second guessing combined with the spook factor of it all will drive you insane."

"I was driven there the day my Dad was killed.  And I have walked back in boots with heels, with my armour now being basic strategy.  Please don't break Mikhail's heart, I'll never hear the end of it.  But thanks for being concerned."

By the time I turned around to challenge her last comment she was gone.

I found myself relatively soon after my brief Pip chat, sitting and marveling at the luxuriant stage curtain of the Mariinsky Theatre.  Somehow Mikhail has been able to get tickets to one of my all time favorites, Swan Lake.  He has asked me on one of our long walks passing through "Architect Rossi Street," if I had a passion for the ballet.  He then pointed out No. 2 which has been the former Imperial School of Ballet but was now named after the renowned prima ballerina Agrippa Vaganova who trained the generation of dancers after the Bolshevicks seized power.  All I had said was that as a little girl my aunt has taken me every year to the ballet and now I take her once a year. 

Two days later I found myself mesmerized with Odette and the Corp de Ballet.  At some point during the performance my hand reached for Mikhail's.  It wasn't planned.  Nef would never believe me but I swear that was not a calculated move.  Maybe taking me to the ballet was his calculated move because by the end of it my hand was being firmly held.

I didn't pull away. Not until it was time to get on the plane several days later.  It has been close to four months now since the passion of St. Petersberg.  He asked me, "What would you say if I asked you to stay?"

I looked around me.  This was an enchantment.  But what would real life be like here?  Where would I work?  What would I become?  It was all happening much too fast.

"Please don't ask me that Mikhail.  I have commitments to keep."

He reached for my hand, "You can't keep running from love forever Santa."

"How can you say my actions have anything in common with running away from love?  The last few days have been many things but running from love is not one of them."

He kissed my cheek and then turned and walked out of the airport. 

I waited. 

He didn't turn back.

 

Hello again Digital Diary.  I last left you beginning to tell my Russian winter tale. I will pick up where I left off.
 
The outside temperature would have been considered cold even by standards we're used to in the city.  But I didn't feel it ever so much.  I had an insulated long coat and warm walking boots and, along with the present company that more than sufficed.  He suggested a café stop first, letting me know it would be a while before we would eat again.

"To the Winter Palace then?"
I honestly told him I knew very little about Russian history.  If only Isabel were here, the two of them could have held court or even a lecture and I could have just followed them around.  I know she would have asked questions that would ignite my dashing guide's mind.  (Why didn't I pay more attention in European History class?  All I could do is bore him with lapel styles and ladies decolletage.)

So I confessed.  "I have heard of a Catherine…"

Engravings of Raphael's frescoes so impressed Catherine the Great that she commissioned copies to be made.  I had never seen columns decorated with such details.  And then I thought- Decorated?  Decorated?  Holy Rats!  Where are the words to describe what I am seeing?  I asked questions.  One after another.  I wanted to hear his words.  His passion.  I figured there was no chance of understanding this man unless I could begin to understand his history.  He didn't need a gallery guide.  After many hours he asked, "Should we go?"

I answered, "Can we come back?"

And, no lies, I did want to go back.  The Hermitage Collection of Antiques-Furniture and Art of Iranian Silver, of Scythian Gold, of the Imperial Family's clothing as well as the opulent state rooms… it could take weeks to take it all in.  I only had 10 days.  And it went.  Before I could catch a breath… the time had gone.

Highlights?

      The walls of St. Isaac's Cathedral are adorned with semi-precious stones, but it's the sheer vastness that struck me.  The ornamental detail became one surprise after another.  

Other Highlights?

   1. The Russian Museum
   2. People watching – the faces of these people…  Well, I couldn't take my eyes away.
   3. Walking.  If we didn't walk so much, looking back now, maybe things wouldn't have progressed as rapidly as they did. But we did walk in February. 
 
It was the day along the Moyka River.  I slipped.  My legs were wobbling and before I could think he grabbed my hand.  A gloved hand.  The other had wrapped around my waist.  A waist covered by a parka.  Burning.  In that split second I knew.  I knew I would.  We cooled down in the church on Spilled Blood.   This church was built on the exact spot where Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated.  It is also called the Resurrection Church of Our Savior and was designed in the Russian Revival style in 1883.  The combination of materials used on the outside as well as the inside are breathtaking.

My guide suggested a café.  Making our way back onto Nevsky Prospect we ducked into a charming place where very few tourists, like myself, seemed to be.  I was handed a menu with Mikhail grinning, asking me, "Are you sure you don't want a menu in English?"

"I'm sure.  I'd rather hear your translation."

Now if I may just insert a comment at this point in the story…

Even cabbage sounds sensual in Russian.  So the way I was thinking frankly was more like, I can eat anytime.  A woman can live on bread and water alone, people, if she can just feast on the accent of a deep, no more like caressing, Russian male voice.  I took a sip of something warm he had ordered for us to drink and bargained, "If, Mikhail, you could read this menu in Russian to me then I insist that you order for both of us."  I held my cup looking at him over the rim.  "What if you don't like what I choose for you?"

"If, for some reason you order me monkey brains, heaven forbid, then you'll just have to take me to another Russian café and order for me again tomorrow."

"Sounds close to torture Santa.  But what happens if I guess accurately and you don't find what I've ordered you to be distasteful in anyway, then what?"

"Then, Mikhail, perhaps you have a wild case of beginners luck and to prove to me that you possess this skill of ordering a meal for a woman you barely know, then we may just need to test you in yet another local haunt of yours."

He did grin as he called "Waiter" (in Russian), then in English he said to the man standing there, "My guest will be having and then broke into full out Russian."

To Be Continued

Rue St Andre Des Arts was the address I was given by Nef before we parted company in Florence.
"Santa, gurl, you know we'll be pushing looks from the moment you press through that door. I'm off to set it up now. I'll catch up with you as soon as you hit Paris
Katerina Jebb photographed Tori on a Xerox copier in 1997. She's a photographer who has always been capable of capturing disturbing beauty. Working with her and Nef in her studio in Paris was everything I had been told it would be. Along with all the other people that are involved in a photo shoot, Clyde dropped by bearing gifts from Paul's, which was just down the street from where we were shooting. Honestly, I was surprised to see her because I had a hunch that she would be asked to play the Paris show so I thought she would be too busy to get involved in mine and Nef's crazy fashion madness, but as per usual, she put aside the time and brought everybody a selection of pastries. Personally speaking I couldn't get enough Les Tartes aux Pommes. Nef put me in this contraption which I still cant explain what it was, but the closest definition I can come up with is an alien harness with dangling little lights calling for the mother ship to come back and suck me into its vortex. Where will this appear.. I will keep you posted. It wont be out for several weeks so I will post once I get the details. The shoot lasted into the evening and after having dinner at a heated outdoor cafe with Nef, I made my way back to the hotel. I've walked alone in Paris many times, enjoying it and not missing male company for a second. For some reason, an experience I thought I had put behind me seemed to take over my field of vision and everywhere I looked I seemed to be dragged back to another city I spent time in not so long ago. To be precise, it was St. Petersburg and no I did not walk any of those streets alone. I write this to you now from a small wooden desk, sitting between a pair of old traditional French windows, with a glass of red wine on my right, a do not disturb on my door and a block on my phone. There must be a reason that I am choosing to relive this now. I will begin at the beginning.

It all began with snow…
In was cold in the city and I only wanted to be nestled inside and keeping warm. Next things I know I received a message from Pip,  who is one of those friends that only communicates through text or email, never by phone.  I met up with her several hours later and found myself the next evening sitting on a plane in business class with her.  Destination: Russia.
Once we landed events became blurred. 
Nef had been tracking me down, warning, "Listen honey, keep a diary or you won't remember anything if you're out runnin' the streets with that one (meaning Pip)." 
She did her Nef thing, "Honey, one event will twist into another like a maze and you won't know how you got there or how to get out."  So I followed her advice and after the first day, kept a journal. 
Pip had explained to me on the plane, as we were landing, that she was there on some family business (I never ask, it keeps things simple) but she said some Russian friends of hers had found a local guide – someone who would take me around.
  I put my hand on hers and said, "I'm a big girl, that's totally unnecessary but thanks, Pip, that was thoughtful."
 Lowering her voice but with a serious tone, "It's been arranged, Santa.  You can't wander off alone, you just can't, trust me on this.  I've made sure that your guide will be acceptable to you.  We will meet every now and again for dinner."  Now that might sound cold, but it was not served with ice.  Well thought out?  Yes.  Cold?  No.
Having said that, I met my guide in the lobby.  I had been told it would be a gentleman.  I was expecting a distinguished older type.  So when my name was spoken in the lobby of the hotel, before I turned around I knew this was trouble.  Stunning.  He was absolutely stunning. 
"I have a plan for your first day in my country if will allow me to show you this city I love?" 
And so it began…

The last few days have been a whirlwind. I've just come from a coffee bar having gotten caught in a late spring shower here in Florence, but today I don't mind. I almost welcome it because it's luring me back inside and inside is somewhere I have not been in days. I'm sorry that I don't possess the vocabulary to describe my awe of the Roman civilization. I know I know I know I know…the blood, the gore, yeah yeah yeah yeah…to all you peace lovers I can understand that the brutality can be distasteful alongside your soy burger, but seriously you cannot deny the antiquities they have left us. I must say I did have the benefit of having Isabel as a tour guide, so I experienced places such as the Coliseum on an extremely different level than if I had been left on my own. European history is not my area, people. I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about when I don't. However, that said, Nef who along with her friend, Valentina, could probably have recited Roman fashion and what the Romans were pushing throughout practically every generation and its trends from 753 BC up until Rome was sacked by the Visigoths…. (I cannot take credit for that reference, historical name dropping is supplied by Isabel). To hear it from Isabel, the Romans were advanced in so many ways; compared to many civilizations up until recently, let's talk bathing. Now ladies, I have a line with this one. However cute he may be, in whatever century, an aversion to bathing is wrong wrong, all wrong. Especially when you realize the availability of public baths at this ancient time, even Tori has a real bee in her bonnet about this one, especially when you get her going on the European invaders that came to America and called the native people savages when they were the ones who were clean and it was the puritanical Christians who were literally filthy. Filth, Filth, Filth…that's what she says, another F word but she does love them. I digress, back to bathing. Now, don't you wonder why in this day and age, a man or a woman for that matter, going out on a date trying to "put their best foot forward" and all anybody can do is take many steps back from "him or her" just because this person forgot that the sweet smell of success is simply soap and water. 

Which brings me to an evening spent with Nef, Valentina, two other women friends and myself where we were enjoying a blissful evening sitting outside in a favorite haunt of Valentina's. Miraculously, moments after we sat down a bottle of very expensive champagne was sent over by a dashing figure leaning on the bar. So, although my mind when it comes to romance and all that entails is currently somewhere else, which I'm not happy about, but it is what it is and I'm preoccupied by someone who I find quite irritating right now... That story really is maybe for next time, he deserves to wait. Still, I would be dead, so would the other women sitting with me, if we weren't charmed by the immaculate presentation that this guy made with his elbows on the bar and the sensual aroma surrounding him. After having been at a gathering the night before at one of Nef's fashion friends parties on their terrace where the attitude was far greater than the substance - this Italian man standing alone with such ease made an impression. Of course we met him and thanked him and of course we got him tickets for the show, which was last night, but Valentina warned us all as every woman's eye followed him while leaving the café. She said in Nef's speak, but in an Italian accent… "Gerllas, donta gett confuseda that 'that one' may make you want toa fantasize abouta a Hotta Romanceah, but let me tell youah, you will be waiting in linea behind the mistress or mistresses who are waiting in linea behinda the wifea." But Rome is romantic and it makes you want to share it with somebody. Luckily, my attention was put elsewhere when we were all summoned to soundcheck yesterday by Tori and it was made known that I would be the first one of the girls starting. I felt an enormous sense of pressure, but I couldn't have been more supported by Clyde, Isabel, and Pip. We are not told until after soundcheck who will be performing that night, which means all of us have to be prepared. What it does is make all of us supportive of each other and closer because if we were called and told the day before then the others could all just blow off the show and head for the next city, but that doesn't make a close knit unit. I didn't expect them to stand backstage with me as I was getting ready, but they did and although I don't know who will be called upon to perform in Florence, I wouldn't think it would be me. But still, I want to be there encouraging whichever woman is chosen. What I could not imagine, even though the musicians tried to describe it to me, was the effect the adrenaline rush would have on my heart. This adrenaline rush becomes euphoric and eventually overtakes the nervousness. When this happens, you feel transported to another dimension. I have only felt this when I am with someone sharing something extremely special and intimate. And this is rare and a moment to be treasured. I want to thank everyone who supported me last night. I now make my way to the Duomo to light a candle of thanks. It's a thank you really to the creative force itself, not specifically to any one entity. After that I am meeting friends for a quiet evening here in Florence, one of the most beautiful cities I've ever experienced and what better way to get to know it than with friends who are dear to your heart. Lovers have come and gone but there is nothing quite like good friends.

Your Body is yours. No matter if anyone else tries to convince you otherwise, that is utter crap. You can take your Body and leave and pretty much go wherever you want to go and your Body is not going to desert you, it needs you and just wants you to think about what it needs and wants once in a while.
But whether you are a judge or an adult actress, if you let people treat you like some piece of garbage with a Hole and degradingly use you, then You and You alone are selling your Body down the river. Having said that not every woman who makes adult films has been abused or damaged. This will throw you perhaps but some do understand the art of being a Courtesan and are not victims and Hold on everybody-----some like their job. O.k. so maybe they had to do a few films that pissed them off and made them hold their nose and even cringe in order to get into the power position of calling the shots, but they bit the bullet. Don't tell me you haven't had times when you didn't want to have sex but you did so as not to cause a rift between you and your boyfriend or other half or whatever…. We all have. So maybe that can be ever so slightly compared to a rough moment for an adult film actress, just without the cash angle. It depends on the individual. I know a judge, a very powerful woman, who is emotionally abused by her very upstanding husband. An old friend from school who is stripping out in Vegas, while studying to get her degree, also knows the judge and has tried to give her the strength to leave him, but the judge is terrified of him. So clichés about which women are in their own authority and which women are actually allowing themselves to be abused may just surprise us all. When you let some guy's juice inside you do you think that you or I have the power to dissolve it without 'it' having some unseen effect on us? You see I am not so sure. I believe that you would have to be some kind of sexual high priestess to transmute oooeygooey deposit in your body from some violent thinking dude. A long while ago, I came to the conclusion that I would rather be alone for life then defiled by a supposed lover. No matter how sorry he is the next morning.
Alright. Here it goes. I went to this "Women Artists of the 20th and 21st Century" event because Clyde invited me. I roped Isabel into going and thank god or I would be in jail. I got into an argument with some idiot critic. No one heard-- it was on the rooftop. Relax, I don't raise my voice when I am in disagreement with an opponent. That is not my style. But how it all started was he came on to me, which I thought was kinda sweet at first. Then he started to expose what he will be printing in "tomorrow's review" section and who he was championing and who he was dissing---- in his very high brow bitch fest way. Well. I stared at him from top to tail and said calmly, "Being sexually frustrated is not a crime but what you are about to write is criminal." He said he was the critic and I said he was writing from his pen below his zipper. So the chicks that turned him on were going to get the write-up and the women that made him think were going to get panned and I told him I was ready to rumble his game. In short the chicks that turned him on, I thought, are the walking embodiment of narcissism and driven exploiters of the Body of Woman. Hey if that's what you want to do, knock yourself out with a handheld mirror. But----- if those expressions this critic was favoring is high art, then why not put Pamie Anderson's sex tape in the Guggenheim???
I assure you, it is more artistic than some of what I saw that is being pushed as art.
As Nef reminded me, from the Fountainhead, that she printed in her magazine WHAT----
The Creator….. thinks
The parasite…..copies
The creator……produces
The parasite …..loots
The creator……stands on his own judgement
The parasite….. follows the opinion of others
The creator ……deals with men in fair exchange
The parasite ….. seeks power, to bind men together in common slavery
[Ann Rand 1943, The Fountainhead]
Who I felt was a parasite and who I felt was a creator is not the important point of this message. And even if you go to Clyde's Blog in the next week and try and decipher who I am talking about you won't get much just because there were so many artists and she has only mentioned a very few to date that were represented. What I will say is that I ran into Kyle, and I don't know. Way cute. But….. Isabel advises that I reserve judgment, time will tell.

Where do I start???
Let's start with the word BODY.
What picture flashes through your mind when you read the word Body?
What picture flashes through your mind when you read the words Your Body?
Because girls and boys that's the whole point. It matters not that history has been unfair to women and their Bodies. Your Body is still Your Body whatever Bull those old farts of history were shovelling down people's throats. Okay. Okay, I ADMIT, it may not have been easy when we as women were being married off to the highest bidder and that laws of old ALLOWED evil husbands to beat the hell out of their wives. BUT, It was still That Woman's Body. Very simply when she dies, her body dies too. No king or even pope could keep a woman's body alive if she chose to flee and perhaps died trying to escape. Ultimately, in the very big end, you decide how you See your own body. I admit that there are circumstances when you disagree what should happen to you and your body and some sick-o imposes their will on your body. However ladies, they don't have control over how you feel in your body. Even if they hijack Your Body for a spin around the block it is not ever anyone else's to possess. Infringe upon, yes, that has happened to more than one woman. Shit Happens. Shit has been happening to innocent women and men for thousands and thousands of years. No pity parties girls. Therefore, and I am fuming as I write this------- what women chose to do with Their Bodies in the 21^st century where we have more choice than we have had in a long, long, long, long time is important. Nobody is making us become objects in the west but ourselves. If we become a Hole for some lecherous vermin smegma then OWN UP ladies----99 times out of a hundred, there is no one to blame but yourselves. SO. Now that I have had my rant I will tell you about my night. I just got off the phone with Nef and she has made me promise that I would write to you, whoever is out there, what I have been agonizing about with her. Why can't we as women in the west Value our Sex? And Not think we're dirty whores just because we may have a sexiness in our morning coffee? The guilt. The shame. How this gets played out by women from coast to coast is painful to watch. Hot and Vulgar are two extremely opposite poles to dance on. But some women can't seem to separate sexy from vulgar. Wrong. Incorrect. I have friends that are high price call girls, judges, dirt cheap adult actresses, doctors, dancers, photographers, astrophysicists (okay so one, and yeah it's a friend's mom, excellent formidable woman by the way) and so on and so on. The truth of the matter is, that sometimes it's the stripper that values her body more than the doctor.

There are so many successful women who were taunted in their younger years. Nef (my fashion friend who styles for specific collections in New York, Paris and London) and I were asking some of the models at the shows what growing up for them was like. Three out of 4 all said that they were not known as one of the pretty girls in school. So, no, not all of them were known as dogs but they did not get much attention for their looks.

Nef interrupted them and said, 'Now hold on a minute. Just hold on a minute. There is no way in this world that you couldn't feel confident about the way you looked, have you looked in the mirror?'

But 3 out of 4 girls every single time would say, 'How the world sees me now, because I have gotten some attention from the modelling world, is not how anybody saw me back home. I would have never believed that I could have a career based on the response I got from where I come from.'

Then Nef chimed in with, 'See, Santa girrrl, I'm telling you that everybody's, and I mean everybody's, neighborhood will have it's very own little slice of hell.' 

I thought out loud, 'Your own neighborhood is just never going to be something that you can be objective about, that's for sure.  Isabel swears that heaven and hell are all here on earth, depending on your perspective that day.' 

Nef put her hand on her hip, shaking her head, 'Honey I'm telling you right now, that girl reminds me of Lee Miller, that hot piece of man ray back in the day.  More hard core than that?  You can't.  She reminds me of this sphinx, always calm and always cool and always observing.'

I noticed by this time that the young model was entranced by Nef as everyone always is when she's in a room.  Not missing a beat she turned to the young model and asked her, 'How did you make it all change for you then?  `Cause things are looking up for you on every level.'
Being a girl from the Eastern block, she was sick and tired of being called Piza, as in the Leaning Tower of Piza, so she secretly would save up her money and buy the hippest fashion magazines she could find and began changing her style.

I asked, 'But how did you get the money to buy the clothes that you saw in the magazines.

She smiled shyly and said, 'I got a job and worked really hard and I would never buy designers, because I couldn't afford it. But I would go to vintage stores or to outdoor markets or to a store like H&M and find outfits that eventually looked a lot like the really cool ones in the magazine but so cheap really. That's how I changed my image, all by myself and then nobody called me Giraffe or Piza anymore.'
 
Nef has always sworn that having too much money when you go shopping can get you into all kinds of fashion disasters. 'Money does not bring you style,' she'll always say. 'Do your research chi-l and stay in touch. What looks good on one girl may just be horrendous on another girl.' But WHY is that if it's a well put together look? 'Because, honey, certain outfits are for a Miss Thing personality. A different look could be too edgy for a book worm. Or a fresh tailored approach may be too conservative for a girl that needs rubber tights.' 

'Well that all makes sense,' I said to Nef, 'because you of all people, Nef, know that if I ended up with Pip's luggage...'

'And hold on a minute girrrl, didn't I read in the newspaper that her dad used to work with the CIA?' 

'I believe that's accurate and she seems to be keeping a lot of secrets herself.  But one thing that isn't a secret is that if she ended up with my luggage, well let's say that she would be taking out her scissors and cutting up my gorgeous looks and...' 

'And Santa, darling you would be getting out your credit card before you would be caught out in Pip's rubber tights.'

Lemon Zabaglione is fresh and clean and has a kick.  I met Clyde for coffee before she had to rush back to "that" art gallery and work like a dog.
I was distracted by a waitress who under her breath said, 'I hate that Bitch,' as she proceeded to shout across the room to another girl headed for the door, 'just remember, everything about you is fake from bust to braids, Bitch.'  And I thought that maybe we as women in all our Back-Stabbing beauty we expect too much from our fellow girls.
Yet we don't seem to be overly surprised when men are selfish and our response is more like, 'That's just how it is. Typical.' But when women are being exactly who they are, which in some cases is pretty selfish, the word "Typical" does not cross our pouty mouths.
No, the reaction is as close to a human woman doing an impression of a volcano as you can get! The betrayal. The disappointment. Then infuriating anger, 'I hate that Hussy Bitch.'
Ladies just stop. We are flesh and blood every single one of us. We do not walk around Air- Brushed, although some may look like they walk around airbrushed and then they open their perfectly lined lips and voila! They talk. Some may talk and you find yourself envying their wit and their perfect timing and the sexy command that they have with words, or not.
But all of us have moments when we hope that Alien Big Brother isn't filming our disastrous moments. But what if they are? Well if they are, then I say then make it a close-up and put it on repeat. Why? You ask why? The pupa, slimy and grotesque to some, will experience metamorphoses. Not all creatures will have this magic transformation happen to them. But this slimy little thingy will. Almost makes me want to be a Buddhist. Can you remember the girl in school who got howled at by the hot guys' table in the cafeteria while the good looking popular girls just basked in a fellow/sista's humiliation… God, how we judge imperfection as unattractive instead of exotic and special. All the while girls that could be clones for each other, even though there is no blood relation, seem to be put on a pedestal as the Ideal of Beauty.
Boring. Butterflies and their "oh-everything-is-beautiful-in-it's-own-way-so-I-must-flap-my-gloriously-cute-wings" kind of annoying posing crap, would be extra Boring and pointless unless…. And this is a Big Unless girls. Unless they, the butterflies, really and truly had lived being Slimy and Grotesque and Unwanted  (except, of course, by bug freaks). No one gets to be born a butterfly, not even Butterflies. The only way then to achieve beauty is through slime.

Welcome. To those with Beauty on the inside. Welcome to those with beauty on the outside. And welcome to those who are working toward having both. Let's face it girls, these days it is possible to do a-whole-lot-with-very-little. I am encouraged by those ladies who have made this their mantra and made this work. Way better than those irritating women who do so little with so many under-developed gifts. It is always good to be grateful, things can always get worse. This blog is dedicated to those girls that just try. When you wake up in the morning and look into that mirror, you are not allowed to see just the problems, not in my game. You must also see the Beauty. Through the next many weeks we will look at both. Love and Lippy, Santa.
 
Style Wars.
What outfits a paid stylist will put a "not bad looking girl" in is beyond me.
Last night I met up with a friend for dinner who styles for Designers as well as Celebs.
We met when I was working for a show producer who put together Fashion shows in Paris and New York. I won't lie. It can all get stressy trying to bring the Designer's vision and their stylist's desires into an actual show. The production of an actual show is more action packed behind the scenes than on the catwalk, unless of course as the audience you are treated to a nasty Style-War-Prima-Bitch-Extravaganza. Once you get over that this is NOT an arena where Beauty on the Inside is valued in the same quantity as Beauty on the Outside. As one Fashion Editor said through a barracuda grin, "Oh Boo Hoo. Beautiful souls can go cry to mommy and get a job at Peta."
This is not a place to wear your heart on your sleeve, don't forget you're usually sleeveless,
if the Fashion Dragons have their way.
Over cosmopolitans Nefertiti, my stylist friend, (referred to by her pals as Nef) leans over the table and says, "Look here chi-l," conspiratorial laugher making her eyes sparkle. "Now Girl, I know that you are not defending that Daddy's Girl excuse for a professional so don't think I'm horrible 'cause I know you're gonna think I'm the Evil of all Evils. But Com'n Girls!
What demonic force, what pathetic sensibility, would organize for a 'somewhat known' and respected celebrity to be parading around in an outfit that, unless you are at least 5'10" in stocking feet, you have no Business wearing?! Not this year, not in a million decades." Hands waving all over the place she was not done by any means, not yet.  "This poor Celeb, who's a nice enough gal, looked Ridiculous and like a muchkin from a Fantasy Animation comic. I would never put that specific Designer's pieces on anything less than a human pencil. Now, Santa, you know I speak what needs to be recognized by the industry as SHOCKING and Miss Thing for her styling disaster alone should be thrown in a rickety rackety old time machine back to the 80's."
Say what you feel Nef. Let off some steam.
"Com'n, Honey, now you know that I live for a cute look even if it's for only one hot second, I am Living for those hot kids to come up with fashion for the economically pressed individual. So when Celebs hire A Joke to dress them, then they have to pay the price with peels of Laughter and the shame of it all."
"Okay, okay, Nef, I got it, but what would you have put 'said Celeb' in?" I had to ask.
"Girl, I would have swathed her in Glamour and then more Glamour and then some more Glamour for formal events........She's a Chanel girl all the way, and for an informal hot minute Christopher Kane would be cute for her. You have to put a client in what they can pull off or it's Painful, just too Painful for the 6 o'clock news Chi-l."
"So Nef what about for a woman who has more sauce, what would you put her in?" I am always curious about her opinion when it comes to the right look for the right woman....
"Oooh Darrrling, I would have to press her through with an Ashish Sequined Bustier Gown or a Gorgeous Lanvin Dress. But only if she can carry it Honey, if she don't have the curves then she better have the carriage."
Still curious, "Hmmm, how many fashion shows did you style in February and March anyway?"
"Well Girl, I was torn because I have my favourites.  But I don't know, I just had to do a few more and be EXXtra. When I finished dressing models for one of the Menswear Collections, and Honey when those boys were pressed and ready to walk out the door, I thought to myself, those boys are always ready.... whether to walk out the door or not is circumstantial.