Almost Girl

We have a fun photo shoot today for Coutorture and I have become obsessed with these Selima Optique clear glasses. GNERGY!

I was having one of those mornings in which delays popped up at every turn. My phone got misplaced, I hit all the red lights on my walk to the subway, I just missed the train, and so on and so forth. I was on my way to Sabine Le Chatelier’s Trend Tasting talk at Premier Vision. Sadly I arrived at 9:40 and was faced with a giant registration line that would have gotten me in the door somewhere around 10am and half an hour into her talk.

Thus to distract myself until the next seminar I wandered into the Jimmy Choo sample sale next door. I am somewhat wary of large shoe sales as invariably the prices are completely out of whack, there are scary women lusting, and you rarely find a good deal anyway. Despite my good friend Lauren coming out with a book on the brand the allure of the Choo shoe has never been strong for me. And yet I found something. The one hole in my shoe wardrobe is the formal sandal.

My preference for gold and platform heels is long standing. And thus when a press sample pair of 37 gold platform current season sandals came my way I got a little distracted. The moral of the story? Never use shopping to kill the time.

And if you like these beauties they are called the Elazer Leather Mirror Platform Sandal in Gold and they retail for about $800. Glad I got them at a fraction of that price!

Makes me happy! Like I should be! Just a beautiful sunset in the best apartment in the best neighborhood in the best city in the world.

I think I should become a hair blogger. It seems like a lot more fun! Check out just how straight it is! The results of a VERY swank hair straightener indeed.

I recently moved back into the loft that my Coutorture partner in crime and I signed a lease on over a year ago. With a sale, a move to San Francisco, a move back, and lots of other fun stuff in between I hadn’t been able to move back into what is my dream apartment until just a week ago. Now maybe its because I am not broke anymore but in the space of a year I have gone from taking up one closet to now easily hogging up both closets in the bedroom.

I avoided seeing T3 the movie. T2 may be one of the best films of all times and as such should not be sullied by some pathetic attempt to extend a franchise. I have however found a T3 I can really get behind! With my bicoastal tendencies I have the pleasure of life in San Francisco and New York. The dangers? Varied climates and tempting Sephora superstores are dangerous. Thus I found myself the proud owner of a T3 travel hairdryer. The before (after a day in Berkeley) and the after (before some cocktail or another). And after 24 hours from a blow out. I have no fancy blowout skills and my hair is normally stick straight so keep that in mind.

Apparently I am actually a girl. And really is that such a bad thing?

I am hosting a little San Francisco Fashion Geek out on Monday as I am in town. Weirdly I have discovered a lot of people don’t realize I am vaguely bicoastal now so I should probably let everyone know that I am in Williamsburg Brooklyn most of the time and San Francisco the rest of the time thanks to my employers Sugar who keep us fashion folks in the New York scene and make sure we get to spend time at the HQ in the Bay Area too.

Anyway, if you are interested in attending the fashion geek out session drop me a line at my gmail (this should be easy to figure out if you know my actual name) or leave a comment here. Hope to see serious fashion and geek contenders. Since we already did a blogger meet up this week for the Coutorture folks this is more of an industry centric dinner just fyi. I plan to have it at 6pm on Tuesday evening at a restaurant in the Mission.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

People confuse me. I often wonder why people see the things that they see. My confusion over my own perception by people close and anonymous has made me dread being open any longer. But I will face my fear. I had one of the most nerve wracking days of my life recently, and you know what, I am facing my fear so listen up. I am not the stone cold, big called bitch you think I am. I am the stone cold bitch you think I am.

Where others see a iron front, I see a goofy nerd. I spend a lot of time crying. I like Star Trek. I like chicken wings. I am silly and warm. I wear Marni pants like other women wear red dresses. My IQ is more than two standard deviations from the norm. My will to power would make Nietzsche blush. I wanted to be a radio astronomer. I want to believe. I want to go to the stars. I hate romantic comedies. The space in other women’s heads that is devoted to celebrities is devoted to cyberpunk, Captain Kirk, Picard, and Commander Sisko. Its not that I don’t care, its just that the memory is used up.

I don’t want to suffer for other women’s insecurities. I have many facets and I refuse to apologize for them. Yes I am terrifying when I need to be because that is my job. You have to be harsh to succeed, particularly as a woman. I will not silence myself for your ego. I will be truthful to you because I respect you. But ask yourself this, how can you fear a girl that giggles about Star Trek, longs for chicken wings, and will go to the mat so hard for you your opponent will never know what hit them? Or perhaps you should fear me because you don’t take the time to understand and I have no patience for it. If you ask me I will tell you. I will be truthful, honest, open and caring. I genuinely wish to understand you but you must ask first. I cannot be digested in sound bytes and false smiles. I will give you a real smile when we meet on open ground.

I have faced my fear. I am a full human being. I am a woman. And I will not dilute one thing to make room for another. I am all these things.

“Yes I know my enemies! They’re the teachers that taught me to fight me.”

Compromise
Conformity
Assimilation
Submission
Ignorance
Hypocrisy
Brutality
The Elite
All of which are American dreams

Its 3am and I am spending the night at JFK. I have been trying to get to San Francisco for nearly twelve hours. However I have learned a few valuable things about social media in the last few hours. Namely that is actually works!

A funny thing started to happen around hour four (I believe 9pm) on the tarmac on JetBlue Flight 647. Starving, delirious, and just a bit cracked Sarah and I started twittering up a storm. Why on earth were we still on the tarmac? Why were there no snack boxes on a 6 hour cross country flight? What on earth do they mean we have to land in Salt Lake City to refuel? Wait, what do you mean our waste tanks are full? And thus with our fellow passengers we started to twitter @jetblue. And guess what we got a response! Some were pretty basic, like that the service rep would start to watch our flight. Some of the responses were downright whacky! Apparently around hour five we filled up our waste tanks and thus our hysterical Jetblue twitter friend told us that we could have no more snacks in jest lest we top it off!

Nedless to say we started to get a little desperate around then and wanted off the damn plane! We even had a few of our fellow passangers help us shoot and upload a Youtube cry for help video! Yes, we had a Verizon internet stick with us.

Blessedly an hour later they let us off. Though not for dinner! They canceled the damn flight since the crew had logged too many hours in the air. Though we are pretty sure around hour three this should have been apparent.

When we got off we were greeted by some surly service reps and eventually gave up and had Brian Sugar help us book a 7am flight on Virgin America. By then there was no real room in the hotels and it was too late to get back home so we are stuck here in JFK all night.

We are a bit sad JetBlue didn’t really DO anything to rescue us but really do appreciate that Jetblue spent so much time and effort twittering us back. And we fully expect a few free flight vouchers to make up for the rigamorale now that they have given us their email.

Thus Sarah and I feel that tonight proved social media makes you more responsive to customers, makes them happier, most importantly creates a forgiving clientèle that feels listened to. We believed in you after your last disaster Jetblue! And while we are still pretty pissed (we booked a 7am Virgin America flight because we couldn’t find anyone to help us rebook our canceled flight) we are nonetheless impressed by the many direct messages you sent to Sarah.

Sticking your toe in the twitter pool can get you in trouble. But we LOVED that the Jetblue Twitter was more responsive than pretty much anyone else at the airport. We couldn’t get an on the ground customer service rep but thanks to our mobile messaging we managed to get through to someone. Twitter is really a pretty great innovation.

Cruise market season has been a real delight. Megan and I have spent the bulk of the last few weeks popping in and out of showrooms shows, penthouses, and even a patio taking in the merchandise for a season ostensibly designed only to appeal to the very well off.

I am not sure if it is the explosion of slik, the flowing champagne, or the general tone of escapism but we found ourselves wishing to do nothing but spend recklessly. We spent what felt like an entire day popping from show to show with breaks at Pastis, Balthazar and Schillers for rosé and nibbles. The Keith McNally triumvirate of indulgence led to making money jokes about our lives as ladies of leisure. Because of course being a fashion editor isn’t really a proper job which requires skill, insight, or a solid knowledge base! Really its a job for idle or aspiring woman at the high end and for frivolous silly bitches on the low end.

Which I have to say feels about spot on in this current flurry of cultural antagonism that is the demise of Hilary Clinton and the rise of Sex and The City. Being taken seriously as a full human being, particularly when one choses to work in an industry dominated by woman is like asking to become a target for criticism from all sides. Men don’t like strong willed working women, women don’t like strong willed working women, and feminists don’t like seeing strong willed working women spending their talent in an industry like fashion.

Perhaps this is why the predominant theme we saw this cruise was one of calm, serene, almost reverential respect to the past. We haven’t figured out how to be successful powerful women that can afford to buy designer clothing in the off seasons with our own damn credit cards except under the guise of giggling, brash, faux empowered consumption as emancipation excitement. I am not a Hilary supporter per say but I am duly depressed by this video. But its not just the men that do this to us. Many of the designers I saw this week were women and they seem just as keen to look back as the rest of us. And damn it all if I am not terrified half the time to stand up and be heard. You get tired of being called a bitch.

I don’t really have much to say anymore on Almost Girl. It doesn’t feel like my home anymore. So much emotional energy goes into Coutorture that not much is left for me to be personal about. And frankly I don’t really feel like sharing anymore. I feel a deeply antagonistic towards readers and commenters anymore. I just got sick of hearing everyone’s damnable opinions on me, my personality, my work, my weight and my wardrobe that opening up has become nearly impossible. I just don’t enjoy being publicly consumed in the way that people seem to prefer. No one has anything constructive to say except that I suck. Yippie!

I got the life, the outcome, and the job I wanted so I sort of feel like telling everyone to bugger off. On that note the DVF sample sale editor preview was this morning and I went a little nuts on the color. I picked up a hot pink pencil skirt and a crazy bright wrap dress. And I really don’t care anymore anyone has to say about it because it makes me happy. The sheer amount of shopping I have gotten to do thanks to sample sale season is making me one satisfied creature.

How we managed to get this up within two hours of showing is beyond me. Coutorture is a fast little beast.

I am so proud of the Learning Annex on Coutorture. Sarah has been hard at work creating a space for learning, sharing, and community building as an interim solution for Coutorture as our parents at Sugar Inc go about building the top secret super project. It has a ton of information and we post twice a day on topics the relate to Coutorture, the community and becoming a better blogger.

I have to smile
I have to show
I have be nice all the time
I have to say hello baby
I have to wake up everyday