I’ve read both A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-examined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations and Colors Insulting To Nature: A Novel and both are sitting beside me in the stacks of the My Lucky Tiger Belt Library. In the former, her hilarious essays nail everyone to the wall from Michael Jackson to Beauty Queens, in the latter, she tells the story of Liza a young lass who wants to be famous (of course) and has very little to no talent. Both are hilarious and sharp and you’ll cringe and laugh at the same time. Her writing is busy, smart and no matter what she’s talking about I’m interested.
Case in point: I was insomnia’s bitch last night and during the wee hours of the morning I read all of her 2007 New York Times Critical Shopper pieces. Now for a dude from another country with less money than it takes to be that kind of shopper (also I don’t wear women’s clothes), I loved reading these (the best part is that I still have from 2008 to now to go through). Don’t get me wrong, I love fashion but as much as the clothes interest me, the people involved are just as interesting. A whole industry run by being bitchy, self-important and eccentric (and by eccentric I mean starving, puking, or on cocaine)? Tell me more.
Anyway, Ms. Wilson goes shopping and writes about it for the New York Times. Sounds simple and fashion-y and not too interesting until you read this about the Just Cavalli store: “The aesthetic kinship between Milan and Texas is in fullest flower at Just Cavalli. The Wild West invariably finds its foot in the boot of Italy. Both places share a devotion to lacquered reptile, buckles shaped like scorpions, animal-print Lycra, big hair and the Spanish Inquisition-y hiss of the branding iron. As Donatella returneth to Dallas, so doth Roberto Cavalli, in his own genre of spaghetti western. It is a celebration of the sin-virtue paradox: the untamed, animal nature of people who love the majesty of religion, but can’t repress a desire to boogie in patchwork leather pants.”
Is she serious? Is she taking the piss? Do I care? Not when she writes brilliance like this one about Dolce and Gabbana’s store: “Drooling over racks of totalitarian resort finery, I succumbed to delusions of megalomania. I selected noms de guerre and despotic monikers for each outfit: Madame Subcommandantrix. La Cobra Blanca. She Who Leaves a Flaming Trail of Plastic Animal-Print Combat Garments en Route to the Glorious People’s Jacuzzi.
Or simply ... Cher.
An example of superlative service: You have selected over $30,000 of garments — and there are three of them, total. They are carried into the ‘special’ dressing room (the one with — no lie — what I believed to be actual cheetah fur covering the doors). You remark: ‘I’ll be in here for a while. I am going to do a pile of blow and clean my gun.’”
An example of superlative service: You have selected over $30,000 of garments — and there are three of them, total. They are carried into the ‘special’ dressing room (the one with — no lie — what I believed to be actual cheetah fur covering the doors). You remark: ‘I’ll be in here for a while. I am going to do a pile of blow and clean my gun.’”
I mean, come on! This is good stuff. There’s more than just the shopping stuff on her site and Ms. Wilson (yes I’m nasty) deserves to be read. She is funny and sharp as a tack and if you like takes-no-prisoners type writing, then you’ll enjoy her.
1 comment:
oooo! cringing and laughing sounds so much better than tossing and turning. Great post, like your style!
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