Ever wondered what fashionistas do? Yes, me too. I spent a day as one earlier this week and have to say, it’s all rather exhausting.
First of all you have to spend hours deciding what to wear. Then you get to the event and think ‘shit, I’m over/under-dressed’. Then you have to try to work out what everyone else is wearing; High Street or designer?
I wore my one designer dress, Maria Grachvogel if you must know, I went to interview her a couple of years ago and ended up spending my monthly salary on clothes.
“Ha!” I thought. “At least they won’t be able to accuse me of being dressed head to toe in Zara, like I usually am.”
The panel event I was attending was organised by a designer clothing store called Symphony around one of the most celebrated fashionistas, or “fashion maniac” as Helmut Newton called her, of our era. She is an Italian called Anna Dello Russo, known affectionately as ADR.That’s her in the middle with the short gold dress. Picture by David Goff.
She is a wonderfully eccentric, positive, outspoken and amusing Italian lady, who apparently has an apartment next to her apartment in Milan where she keeps her clothes.
“Do you ever walk in there,” I asked her, “and say to yourself ‘I’ve got nothing to wear?’”
She looked horrified. “A woman who says that should see a psychiatrist, she is depressed.”
Then I asked her if she ever wore the same thing twice. “Never,” she said. I wanted to ask if she even changes her pyjamas on a daily basis, but would probably have been told that pyjamas are soooo last week.
We discussed a range of topics in front an audience, from what makes a successful designer to whether you should mix and match High Street with high end. Anna claims she does wear High Street, but that the one thing she will never do is wear cheap shoes. It was at that point that I realised that I had committed a fashion faux pas. My shoes are as cheap as they come, something I plan to radically overhaul. If I’m going to be a fashionista, I need the proper kit. Let’s hope Anna didn’t notice them.
Maybe if I can get people to call me HFP I have a future…?
For reasons too tedious to explain, I have been to two Carrefours today and you would have thought they had announced that you got a year’s free groceries judging by the queues. Or that every litre of milk came with a kiss from Carla Bruni for the blokes and one from Olivier Martinez for the girls.
She happened to be having lunch in the same restaurant as the above-mentioned mutual friend and I. The friend, being rather mischievous, called her over and introduced us. He didn’t let on that I knew Heathcliff years ago and had been desperately in love with him.
Do I try to go fashionista? Wear something designer? Do I actually have anything designer? Or should I go Sunday Yummy Mummy; all jeans and baggy jumpers and ‘oh aren’t I just so casual’? But which jeans? Is it now a crime to wear skinny jeans or have they come back in? I also have a pair of high-waisted jeans but worry these may be seen as an affront to her sensibilities.