The Want Monster Has a Pear-tini

Saturday, I attended a fashion show that took place at a shopping center here in Austin called The Domain. (Could we be a teensy bit more grandiose with the name, do you think? Did the PTB at Simon Malls feel that "The Promised Retail Land" or "The Fashion Fiefdom" or "Manifest Shopping Destiny" wouldn't fly?) I have been to a few pretty lame fashion shows & events here in my town, which I love desperately but is still not, despite my efforts, a very big pin on the Fashion Map. This one was actually kind of fun, however, because they gave away booze (Pear vodka & grapefruit juice cocktails! Hooray!) and appetizers from some of the excellent restaurants in the Domain (Yummy nibbles of sauteéd salmon and crabcakes! Hooray!) and the stores that were featured in the show were some of the best ones in Austin. (Neiman Marcus! Barney's Co-Op! Intermix! Hooray!)

A note: a drink containing pear vodka and grapefruit juice is not, I repeat not, a martini, no matter what shape glass you put it in. It has no gin, it has no vermouth, it is not a martini. I am sick unto death of everything being -tini'd these days. It sullies and cheapens the good name of a classic beverage, it degrades the inherent sophistication that used to come from holding one of those delicate, frosted glasses in one hand while you swirled your toothpick-impaled olives around the slightly oily surface of the cold, cold gin with the other. What next? I'm waiting for some bartender to pour my Guinness into a triangular glass and call it a "stoutini." But I digress...

Austin, bless its heart, is not without its pretensions. This fashion show was supposed to be exclusive and invitation-only, although it and its opening little cocktail soirée was held in a tent plonk in the middle of the street that runs down the center of this open-air mall, so that the invitees swirled around inside our roped-off area like very well-dressed antelopes at the zoo, while retailers in cargo shorts and flip-flops gawked at us as they shuffled by swinging their Banana Republic shopping bags. My invite came courtesy of my delightful Denim Guru Broc, who works at Barney's Co-Op and is so sweet and so cute I could make him into a sandwich and eat him for lunch. (Seriously -- if you need jeans, go see Broc. Dayum, he knows a lot about denim.) An RSVP via e-mail was required (which I had duly performed) and there was a young man with his list at a table near the entrance of the shindig. He dutifully checked off my name, then he handed me a neon green rubber wristband, of the sort made popular by various charitable organizations.

Seriously? Neon green rubber and you want me to put that on? Because folks, I was wearing this:

(Black cashmere Robert Rodriguez cardigan with fox collar, triple-layer tulle Michael Kors skirt, black Stuart Weitzman Goliath boots. I apologize for the lame photoshopping and the faux artiness of the photo -- Style Spy, bless her heart, is also not without her pretensions.)

I defy you to tell me what part of that outfit says, "And what would really cap this off is an acid-green rubber wristband!"

Yes, pretty dressed up for a shopping mall on a Saturday at 6:00 pm, but the invite said, "Dress to turn heads." Well, ya don't have to tell me twice! And can I just say, my head turned a lot. Mostly, my head turned in order to look away, or turned toward my gorgeous friend Margaret to exchange horrified looks and urgent whispers. (Mags was turning heads for the right reasons, including her gunmetal-gray leather pencil skirt and a pair of silver & gunmetal patent round-toed platform Chanel slingbacks that make me die a little inside -- in a good way -- every time I look at them.)

My Want Monster has been fairly dormant of late. Sure, there have been some things around that I've thought I would really like to have, like those YSL cage booties, but not really anything that made me think, "I HAVE to have that!" Not really anything that gave me the feeling that I would plot & scheme & plan & even save my money (the very idea!) in order to acquire them. The sort of shoe or skirt or piece of jewelry that I instantly know will go with -- nay, improve -- about a squillion things I already have in my wardrobe; some fashion doohickey that my mind's eye is already forming a season's worth of outfits around.

Until Saturday at the Domain, when I snapped this photo:



It is a bad photo and I apologize. Some of that is due to my general ham-handedness at photography, some due to my camera being... well, let's just say that if my camera went to school it would probably go in a short bus, and some of the photographic badness can be chalked up to the fact that I was having a Fashion Epiphany and was quivering and babbling in tongues like a Pentacostal preacher at an Arkansas tent revival.

The shoe in the shot above stomped down the runway during the Intermix portion of the show and so as soon as I roared back home (after a yummy dinner and some more wine -- hooray! -- with Mags), I hied myself to the Intermix website to find these babies.

They're from Chloé, and here they are.

Oh, those just tick all the boxes for me. Big, chunky, statement-y shoe (I'm still in the throes of this phase), patent leather -- love, nice wide forefoot strap to keep 'em from biting into my tender white flesh, interesting monochrome buckle that gives good detail without distracting from the shape of the shoe, good sturdy ankle strap to keep 'em from falling off my hoof, Cinderella-like, as I trip down the palace stairs, fantastic neutral color that is going to go with everything.

Oh, and they're $700.

When I saw that I felt like someone had poured a bucket of very cold pear & grapefruit non-tinis over my head. Owowowowowowowowow. Seven-hundred clams? Is a lotta money for a pair of sandals, despite their perfection.

I'm going to need to think long & hard about this one. I'm going to need to think at least until the next round of sales at Intermix...


Photos: Style Spy, Intermixonline.com