Fashion Blackout

It has the words "Eiffel Tower" AND "Alexander McQueen" in its name. So I honestly don't know how I could have been expected to resist -- it was like a sartorial smart bomb designed just for me.

I was poking through Net-A-Porter one day a couple of weeks ago, minding my own business, when I stumbled across this:

Alexander McQueen Eiffel Tower top (of Death)

Good googly-moogly, that is fabulous. Seriously, amazingly cool. I wanted it for under my black Boudicca jacket with a pair of skinny jeans and some ferocious shoes. I pictured that outfit, and then it was like an 81% nylon/19% elastane haze fell before my eyes and when I came to -- I had just ordered this top. I honestly don't remember doing it, or even thinking about it. I thought I'd left this sort of experience behind when I stopped going to frat parties when I was an undergrad...

Yes. Crazy. Complètement fou. But look at it!

So marvelous. This is the kind of thing where being a small-busted gal (a carpenter's dream, I believe was the junior high parlance) pays off: I have a great, perfectly plain, perfectly me-colored Wacoal bra that's going to disappear entirely under this top. So I will look practically naked, but not in a trashy way. (Or so I like to tell myself. Allow me this small self-deception, if you would. I'm harming no one but myself.)

Of course, two moments after I blinked awake and found myself hunched over my laptop with a Visa in my hand, I realized that this was nuts. I can't have this top! While it's not egregiously expensive, especially in McQueen World, I just don't need to be throwing a couple of c-notes plus, at what is, let's face it, a whole lotta very specific and not exactly versatile look.

So it was a relationship doomed to fail from the beginning. Which did not stop me, I assure you, from digging into that gorgeous Net-A-Porter packaging (Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to shop there, do it. The gorgeous black boxes with their grosgrain ribbon bows and customized dustbags are so over-the-top decadent -- by far the best packing materials In. The. World.) and trying it on.

First off, it is wonderful. It looked remarkably like the image shown of it on the mannequin on me, which was cool -- truth in advertising is always nice. However, the thing was actually a little too small. I know it's supposed to fit very closely, but it was downright tight, to the point of being uncomfortable. And the thing is, I ordered a medium. And this medium was not nearly medium enough -- I would have needed at least a large.

What's even crazier? The thing not only came in small, it was also available in x-small and xx-small. And those two sizes? Sold out!!!

Are you kidding me????

Who the hell is wearing the xx-small? Are there a couple of incredibly chic 10 year-olds dashing around New York sporting this thing? Friends, I wear a 32A bra. Honestly, I am not medium-sized upstairs -- I am small. (And if you want proof, go try to find a bra that size in your local department store.) I admit, I'm not the ittiest-bittiest gal in the whole USA, but still... The last blouse I ordered online was a 4 and I had to send it back because it was too big. Comparatively, I am small.

It further confuses me because I have a few other McQueen pieces, and they aren't insanely sized -- in fact, I've found his sizing to be on the generous side compared to designers at a similar level. So this just gobsmacked me. Obviously, the desired look of this top is second-skin, but on me it was literally going to become my second skin, because I think it would eventually have cut through my actual skin!

No matter. Even if it had fit, it had to go back; and I duly requested a return number, re-packed it in its fabulous black box, attached the (pre-paid) return label and regretfully dropped it off at the UPS store. My episode of fashion madness is over.

Over for the moment, of course...