Handbag Heaven

by Alderson, Maggie

  I knew from experience that you always needed an emergency outfit for ‘Quasi Modo’ days on those trips, because when you are going to be surrounded by the most stylish people on earth, watching the most beautiful women on earth modelling clothes so fashionable you can’t even buy them yet, there is no leeway for a clothing crisis. You have to have something you can wear when everything looks terrible – and you are always in a hurry.

  And there it was, this bright red silk shirt that fell mercifully to mid thigh, but was made of the most extraordinary printed fabric with cherubs and garlands up the gazoo, so it didn’t matter that you were wearing that most desperate of garments: a Big Shirt.

  At £300 it was the most expensive single garment I had ever bought and I felt sick with guilt and horror as I walked out of the shop with it. But boy, was that shirt a good investment. On the Cost Per Wear principle I must have got it down to 50p a shot. It never ever let me down.

  I wore Shirty to fashion shows with leggings and great shoes (don’t snigger – leggings were the thing in 1990; Anna Wintour was wearing them, too). I wore it to smart lunches on hot days with a neat little skirt and great sandals, and to dinner with an extra button undone, more jewellery and Manolo Blahnik shoes. I wore it to work. To parties. On planes. I wore it for a meeting with Evelyn Lauder. I wore it to lunch with Jean-Paul Gaultier. I wore it in winter over a black poloneck and in summer over not much at all.

  When it got older Shirty started to come on holiday with me, and we drifted around some very hot climates with our sleeves rolled up. In its very last months Shirty even started coming to the beach. But by then the rot had set in – literally. The silk had started to wear and tear. I had it mended several times to little effect, but even then I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Even after it accidentally got wet in the great laundry bag disaster of 98 and all the colours ran, I still kidded myself I was going to make Shirty into a fabulous cushion.

  Of course I didn’t, and now I have finally said goodbye to Shirty. And to my simple black sandals with buckles. The best shoes I have ever bought in terms of the style–comfort ratio. I’ve said goodbye to two little tops from Jigsaw that went under everything perfectly, and even to a couple of agnès b. faggoted cardigans, which I have finally decided I am fully over.

  I did feel poignant for a moment as I finally threw them out – and I haven’t given a thought to any of them since. But I’m not a millionaire yet, dammit.

  Chain reaction

  I am a liar. Many is the time I have exhorted women of a Certain Age to forgo cheap clothes in favour of owning fewer quality items that fit better and will last longer. This was rank hypocrisy. I adore cheap clothes. A trip to Pitt Street Mall or the Sportsgirl Centre to check out the latest ‘offer’ (retail jargon) at Portmans, Witchery and the like fills me with almost as much excitement as a stroll around Prada, Gucci or Chanel, where I know I will be treated more like a probable shoplifter than a potential shopper.

  With the lack of really enormous smelly second-hand markets in Sydney and Melbourne (compared to, say, London or Paris, which are full of stinky piles of delicious dross), I think a foray through the racks of the chain stores satisfies the same atavistic foraging instinct that is sated by ransacking a flea market.

  When I come out of Sportsgirl with a cute little evening bag for $25, or Portmans with a three-quarter sleeve V-neck T in fuchsia cotton for $30, I feel as if I have really scored. I’ve somehow got one over on the whole fashion conspiracy by finding something great in a cheap shop.

  This is delusional. It’s not an accident that Witchery has done a cotton cardie with frogging awfully similar to the agnès b. ones I keep going on about (actually, I am over them now, as previously mentioned) and Sportsgirl has done a good version of my favourite DKNY black jersey pants. These are not coincidences. The designers, buyers and trend scouts for our trendy chain stores know exactly what they are doing.

  In fact, they are among the world’s most frequent flyers, as it is part of their job description to jet around the globe looking at the newest shops and designer gear. Seriously. They window-shop for a living. Then they do ‘interpretations’ of the best bits they have seen and sell them to people like me at a fraction of the price of the real thing.

  When they are not actually in New York, London and Paris checking out the new things by Callaghan, Narciso Rodriguez and YSL, they are going through copies of the latest Italian Vogue and US Harper’s Bazaar, which they have airmailed to them the day they hit the newsstands in Milan and New York.

  So it’s hardly surprising that by the time chumps like me get hold of the overseas mags and are instantly consumed with desire for a beaded dress, or a velvet coat like the ones Amber Valetta is wearing on page 143, they are already waiting for me, cut-price, in the mall. So who is the clever one, really? Them for knowing what the fashion victim is going to crave next, or me for getting it cheap?

  Fashion buyers are always fiercely fashionably dressed themselves. These are the people who actually shop in Gucci and Prada. They wouldn’t dream of wearing cheap clothes. They always buy This Season’s Shoe and special ‘pieces’ by obscure designers.

  When a piece of clothing is referred to as a ‘piece’, it means that it is made of an obscure (and usually scratchy) fabric and can’t be worn without holding your stomach in. You usually need instructions on how to put it on and a fairly good knowledge of knots to keep it there. Designers who produce ‘pieces’ include Akira Isogawa, Comme des Garçons, Nicola Finetti and Issey Miyake.

  Women who wear them always stand out at parties and look ever so slightly smug. They know they have spent their fashion dollars wisely on a few well-chosen ‘pieces’ that will always attract comment.

  I wish I were the kind of woman who bought ‘pieces’, but I’m just not. I like stuff and lots of it. And that’s the other great thing about cheap clothes. You can have so many more of them. Whatever age you are.

  Fateful attraction

  Clothing comes into our lives in many different ways. Sometimes we go out looking for it, money saved up, list of essentials written. This is when we find nothing that suits us. Then there are the outrageous shopping accidents which seem to happen when we can least afford them. Out we go for a new ironing-board cover (because we are so strapped for cash we have started taking in washing) and back we come with two cashmere cardigans and a delicately embroidered handbag. We feel so guilty we have to smuggle them past ourselves into the house.

  Occasionally there are fashion purchases that transcend all the rules. They don’t make you feel guilty and you certainly can’t plan them. We don’t look for them, they find us. Like love at first sight and the coincidences in romantic fiction, they are simply meant to be. This is synchronistic shopping. Karmic klothing.

  Consider these examples: (1) The Cesare Paciotti Shoes. Sometime ago, my boyfriend P. went to Melbourne to watch the Australian soccer team not get into the World Cup. While he was heartbroken about the two-all draw that bade the Socceroos toodle-oo, this tragedy paled compared with the incident with the blue suede shoes.

  Brought up in southern Europe and very particular about his attire, P. had been scouring Sydney for something chic yet casual to wear sockless with his Calibre pants. They had to satisfy his very specific aesthetic – nothing clompy, nothing flashy, nothing cheap and nothing badly made. And that’s what he found. Nothing.

  But in Melbourne, where he says they really understand gentlemen’s attire, he found them immediately. Supple blue suede loafers, like Tod’s for men, he explained, with a really small silver snaffle.

  Even the outrageous $500 price tag didn’t disturb him. They were the right shoes and his clothing credo is you don’t need to buy much if you buy the best. Oh, the disappointment when they didn’t have his size. Oh, the number of times he told me about it.

  So when we were back in Melbourne recently, there was much anticipation about going back to the shop because they might have new stock. They didn’t. The shop didn’t eve
n exist any more.

  Poor old P. was looking bravely at another summer in sandshoes, when his saintly patience with a clothing-fixated woman was rewarded. Agreeing to come into ‘just one more’ shop as I pursued my personal quest for a lightweight suit, there it was – a great pile of boxes of his perfect shoes. And not only did they have his size and his colour, they were on sale. $198. It was meant to be. (2) The Green Velvet Suit. On a business trip to London, my friend Julie, a woman of great taste and a walking advertisement for investment dressing, was cruising Harvey Nichols in search of a simple black suit she could wear every week for the next ten years.

  She found it (Claude Montana) and bought it, wincing at the price, but knowing it was a sensible buy. Moments later, she fell in love all over again – but with a much less suitable boy. A pale green velvet suit. She loved it, she looked gorgeous in it, she just couldn’t justify it. But she thought about it all the way home on the plane, eventually ringing a girlfriend in London and persuading her to buy it, just so she would know it had gone to a good home.

  Months later, strolling through David Jones’s designer precinct, Julie saw her suit again. The right size, half the price. She wears it at least once a week. It was meant to be.

  Women’s wear daily

  Not wearing black didn’t work. Just wearing dresses didn’t work. So in my ceaseless search for the ultimate clothing solution, I have been trying an experiment. Every day this week I have worn exactly the same outfit to the office: black pants and a black cashmere poloneck.

  I don’t think anyone has noticed.

  I’ve noticed though. I’ve noticed that it only takes me five minutes to get dressed in the morning. I’ve noticed that I have felt effortlessly cosy, smart and comfortable every day. And I’ve noticed that I have had none of those terrible moments in the workplace lavs when you realise that, under fluorescent light, the outfit that looked pleasantly curve-hugging at home makes you look like a packet of cling-wrapped snags.

  The reason no-one seems to have noticed my unchanging aspect is partly because black pants and a poloneck is the kind of invisible commando’s outfit you’d wear to rob the safe at the Hôtel de Crillon. But also, when you work with people every day, it actually becomes them you notice; the person and not their clothes. Blimey, there’s a thought.

  Mind you, I must have been noticing my colleagues’ clothes a bit because I got the idea for my new work school uniform from them.

  Of course, a lot of blokes wear the same suit to work every day; that’s a given. In fact, it is one of the great professional advantages of being a corporate male. They’ve already slurped two lattes and read the Fin Review from cover to cover while you are still trying to find the right pair of opaques to go with that particular skirt. But some of the women at my work have uniforms, too.

  Verna wears white every day. Always white pants, with various white jumpers, shirts and T-shirts. Her hair is white to match. I’d love to have a peek in her wardrobe – you’d need snow goggles. Suzy also wears daily pared-down ensembles with pants, but hers are in black and greys, with lovely chunky silver bangles to set it all off.

  So those are their uniforms and mine is upmarket cat burglar, with slight variations each day: in the shoe department, because it’s not good for the shoes or your feet to wear them two days in a row, and in the coat decision, because one day it was raining and another it was really freezing. The choice of coat led to a change of handbag, but this is minor compared with the usual frenzy of this-doesn’t-go-with-that at 8.45 a.m.

  During my first week in my winter plumage, I’ve had two business lunches, but they were with different people, so Wednesday didn’t know what I wore on Tuesday (and I sponged the vongole sauce off the front so they wouldn’t guess). And the night I had to go from work to a cocktail soiree, I just put on my good pearl earrings and smarter shoes.

  So far, I don’t think I smell. I gave the jumper a good sniff this morning and all I got back was a lungful of Calèche, so it seems that a quality natural fibre like cashmere just airs naturally each evening. And if you couldn’t wear trousers for five days on the trot we’d all open dry-cleaning shops and retire after a year, although, once I get into the swing of it, I intend to do a weekly rotation with a similar pair of trews and wash the sweater on Sundays.

  Hang on a minute – that sounds dangerously like a routine. Maybe this one-outfit wonder malarky isn’t for me after all. Come to think of it, I did spend eleven years of my life creatively subverting a school uniform to express my individuality. Perhaps I’ll just get up half-an-hour earlier instead.

  News of the shoes

  I have been in Paris for a week, staying in my natural habitat on the Left Bank – wedged in between the streets that women all over the world think of as Shoe Central. I haven’t bought a single pair. I can’t. There are too many nice ones.

  Last time I was here, six months ago, I didn’t buy any shoes because they were all too horrid, or stupid. Now I can’t buy any because they are all too nice. The problem is, whichever pair I choose instantly means there is another pair I won’t be able to buy. What if I realise later that I liked them better?

  Of course, one option would be just to buy all of them (the Jackie Onassis manoeuvre), but for the sake of my financial future – and the weight of my luggage – I have given myself a budget of two pairs. But how can I pick just two from such a panoply of fabulous footwear? It’s like the auditions for Scarlett O’Hara.

  If I buy the fiercely pointy stiletto ankle boots I really want, I won’t be able to buy the Prada mules in three shades of café au lait that I also really want. And if I buy those I won’t be able to buy the cherry red rubber-soled, cute with a suit, rain-friendly walking shoes that I actually need.

  Then there are the black patent court shoes in Yves Saint Laurent and the sand-coloured loafers in Gucci. Not forgetting the purple patent courts with a walkable heel from Sergio Rossi that my pal Naomi bought, Deeta’s jewelled Maud Frizon mules, and the Jil Sander evening shoes that Melissa is obsessing about.

  Because it’s not just me. Every time I step out of my hotel I seem to bump into another fashion friend (we’re all here for the shows) on her own Paris shoe mission. It’s like a mantra.‘I’m just allowing myself two pairs… but I have to look at them all before I decide.’

  Yesterday I bumped into Nicole on rue de Grenelle and recognised all too well the intensely focused expression in her eyes as she set off for rue du Cherche-Midi, almost audibly keeping an inventory of what she had already clocked in Michel Perry, Miu Miu, Christian Louboutin and Sergio Rossi. Then I ruined her life by telling her there were also some great things in Sacha.

  ‘I’m just allowing myself two pairs,’ she was saying, as she detoured down rue du Four.

  Post script: This was written during the Paris ready to wear one October. For the record, I bought a pair of red graphic-print fabric Prada sling backs with wild red heels and the black pointy boots from Sacha. Both pairs have been on their maiden voyages – a preview of the re-make of Shaft and a frenzied night dancing with handsome young men at a Paris bo£te respectively – and have been deemed a total success in terms of compliments received, relative comfort and ‘lucky shoe’ status.

  Which just goes to show we were right all along – shoes bought in Paris really can change your life.

  The untouchables

  I have long lost track of how many fashion shows I’ve been to, but I still never fail to be amazed by how the eye can adjust to new looks.

  Sometimes things look right immediately – like Prada’s 1940s chiffon print dresses, with tweed coats and fur tippets. Other styles, like Fendi’s spring/summer 2001 show, which was all mad World Wrestling Federation gold belts and shoulder pads Grace Jones would have baulked at in 1984, looked totally nuts at the time. But when I received the bound ‘look book’ from the company just a few weeks later, which has a snap of every outfit in it, I started planning my shopping list. Mmm, a ruched aubergine silk jumpsuit… tasty.
I want pink fluoro cone-heeled pumps and I want them now.

  But despite the human brain’s amazing ability continually to tune into new ideas and aesthetics, there are some looks that should never see the catwalk. Yet they do. Every fashion season most of the following are witnessed, sometimes all in the one show:

  Hobble skirts. There is nothing more painful than seeing a model torturing her way down the catwalk in a stupid outfit she can’t stride in. It looks dumb, takes too long, is reminiscent of foot binding and highly offensive to today’s action babes. Plus I always feel so sorry for the poor model – it’s like being at a play when someone forgets their lines or falls over. You lose the illusion. And want to go home.

  Anything with one leg. This never, ever works. When the loudest thing an outfit is saying is ‘This is novel!’ it’s a guaranteed flop. One shoulder just scrapes through, but even one sleeve looks pretty dumb. And don’t remind me of the one-cheeked bikini bottom I once witnessed.

  Nappy effects. Sometimes this is long and swingy, other times it is a snug Pamper – it’s hard to say which is worse. Either way, male designers don’t understand that fabric brought between the legs and fastened whispers ‘Panty Pad’ to most women and evokes ghastly memories of being thirteen. Gandhi was the last person who could pull off this look in public life.

  Hats and headdresses covering the entire face. Another model torture. You can just see them thinking ‘F∗∗∗, f∗∗∗, f∗∗∗, I hate this!’ as they totter along.

  Total body jewellery and other fashion contraptions. If you can’t walk through a door without turning sideways, sit down, or raise a tea cup to your lips in it, I don’t want to see it on a catwalk. I don’t care about making a statement, it just gets in the way of seeing the actual gear.