Shoe Money

by Alderson, Maggie

  One evening I went to pay Rose a visit and nodded off in front of her gas fire and Krystle Carrington. The reason I was so tired, I explained, was because I had been out dancing the night before.

  Where did you go? asked Rose.

  The Café de Paris.

  I used to go there, she said. In fact, I danced with the Prince of Wales at the Café de Paris. Not this one. The one before him.

  Did you really? How wonderful.

  Oh, no, it wasn’t. He was a horrible man. He was drunk. He laddered my stocking. Would you like to see it?

  Rose disappeared off to her bedroom and came back with a fine, flesh-coloured silk stocking, carefully folded in a linen envelope. She took it out and showed me. There was a big ladder right where your shin would be.

  One morning I knocked on Rose’s door and there was no reply. I ran to Bow Street police station and a bobby came and broke the lock. Rose had died in the night. And a little piece of London died with her.

  Straight after her funeral, property developers stripped her apartment and tricked it up like a whore’s boudoir (shortly before they managed to get me and all the other tenants out of the building).

  I always wonder what happened to that stocking.

  The great fashion myths

  Fashion myth: Vertical stripes are flattering.

  Vertical stripes are not flattering. As any deckchair will tell you. Yes, they do initially make the eye move up and down the body, but then they make it move backwards and forwards across it, counting exactly how many stripes it takes to cover your form.

  Then the eye registers that it takes a heck of a lot more stripes to cover your torso than it does to cover Gwyneth Paltrow’s.

  Vertical stripes also have a charming way of drawing attention to gaping buttons and all the places where the fabric is pulled out of shape by your voluptuous curves.

  And they announce loudly to passers-by, ‘I am wearing vertical stripes to make myself look thinner.’

  Fashion fact: Black is flattering and does not show where your body is testing the tensile strength of a fabric.

  Fashion myth: You should accentuate your good points with light colours.

  This reasoning leads directly to that old-favourite tip that pear-shaped women should attract attention to their teeny-tiny upper bodies by wearing pale colours on top and darker colours on their big fat bottoms, so that no-one will notice them.

  In fact, this has the effect of making the slender area look bigger, so that the good point becomes a not-so-good point and they just look like soncy lassies from head to toe.

  Fashion fact: Black clothes make all parts of the body look slimmer.

  Fashion myth: The white shirt is a wardrobe essential.

  Well, first there is the laundering, and even when you have washed, starched and ironed the stupid thing, the bus ride to work will turn what was supposed to ‘add crispness and lighten your face’ into an old tea towel with grey cuffs.

  I once worked with a woman who would re-iron her white shirt each lunchtime at the gym, to hold on to that crispy feeling. That’s twice a day. Is that really what you want to spend your time doing?

  Then there is the way you spend all day tucking it back into your trousers, or else look like an Austrian blind with legs. Something about the shape of men’s bodies seems to keep their shirts tucked in, while women’s ruck up and go nasty.

  Not to mention the unsightly bulges caused by the excess fabric that you have to stash away among your own unsightly bulges. Of course, Donna Karan invented the ‘body’ shirt, with joined-on panties, to combat exactly these problems. Which is a great idea if you are nostalgic for the feeling of full nappies.

  Fashion fact: Donna Karan also does a great line in black jersey shirts which don’t need ironing, don’t show dirt and don’t need tucking in.

  Fashion myth: Jeans are comfortable and great for travel.

  There is such a thing as comfortable jeans. But to be comfortable, they must also be slightly too big – perfect if you want to give the impression you have parked your Harley just around the corner while you pop out for another quick piercing.

  Flattering jeans are too small and not recommended for those prone to crotch claustrophobia. People who wear jeans on long-haul flights should be given some kind of endurance medal. Denim also weighs more than lead and smells hamsterish after one wearing. Leave them at home.

  Fashion fact: Black pants made from cotton with Lycra are flattering and comfortable, weigh next to nothing and keep their shape from Sydney to Rome. And still fit on the way home.

  Blonde faith

  Blondes have less fun.

  Of course, it depends on your definition of fun. If you love nothing better than a wet T-shirt competition, pole dancing and having ‘Hey Big Tits!’ shouted at you in the street, you will definitely have more opportunities as a blonde.

  But if your idea of a good time is a four-hour foreign-language movie followed by dinner at an interesting new Korean restaurant, you’re going to be spending a lot of nights in, Pamela.

  Teenage boys and yobbos love blondes. Gentlemen prefer brunettes. I can’t say I blame them. I used to think Roger Daltrey was the most gorgeous man on earth (it was the 1970s) until I saw The Godfather and blond men ceased to exist. Al Pacino’s glossy black hair changed the shape of the world for me.

  It’s the same for intelligent men. They were mad about Debbie Harry until they saw Anouk Aimee in A Man and a Woman and it was all over red rover for us blondies.

  There is no doubt dark is the more sophisticated choice. Blondes are Babycham, brunettes are brandy. Blondes are Tip Top, brunettes are sourdough. Right now, I bet Prince William has Pamela Anderson and Claudia Schiffer all over his Eton study walls. But he’ll grow out of it. He’ll see Breakfast at Tiffany’s and never look at another blonde again.

  Well, he will look at them. We stand out more. He’ll look at them, he may well shout ‘Show us your growler!’ at a few, and, considering how devastatingly handsome he is (even for a blond), he’ll probably bed several thousand of them.

  But he won’t fall in love with one.

  Men feel romantic only about brunettes. They feel horny about blondes but they don’t write us poetry – they don’t think we’re intelligent enough to understand it.

  When I was at university, I dyed my hair from Diana Dors bottle-blonde to Siouxsie Sioux coal-black one evening (anything rather than work on my essay). Overnight, my marks went up. One art history tutor who used to look through me in tutorials suddenly treated all my contributions with the utmost respect. Even the ones about how Bellini’s Christs were more attractive than Giotto’s.

  After a few months, I tired of looking like an extra from Night of the Zombie Flesh Eaters and cut it all off, to grow back natural. With every additional centimetre of fair to middling hair, people’s expectations of my IQ retreated.

  Fifteen years later, I still cop ‘dumb blonde’ prejudice. Occasionally, intelligent, interesting men who meet me in the dark when I’m wearing a hat accidentally ask me out. Sooner or later they always tell me, ‘You’re the first blonde I’ve ever been out with …’ (To which one added, winningly, ‘But you’ve got a brunette brain.’)

  No doubt they were concerned I might think they were the kind of guys who liked blondes, and think less of them.

  They’d be right.

  Shopping with Kate Moss

  I once went shopping with Kate Moss. And we’re not talking just looking, thank you. I tried things on next to her – in a communal changing room.

  So there we were trying things on and she was looking at how she looked in them and I was looking at how I looked in them and I suddenly felt rather thoughtful and deeply regretted that I didn’t have my degree certificate with me to show her.

  ‘You look great in that size-six sausage skin, Kate,’ I might have said. ‘I’ve got an M.A., you know. What is the capital of Peru?’

  But the spooky thing was that, after trying on just about everythin
g agnès b. had to offer (we were in Paris, I was following her around during the couture shows, somebody had to), and after much consideration, we both bought a pair of trousers. The same pair of trousers. Well, there were two pairs, actually, but we both bought the same style.

  Now, I am 152.5 cm tall and definitely not a supermodel, but those trousers made me feel chic, soignée and generally super. And they looked pretty good on her too. True, I had to have about six inches cut off the legs of mine and they weren’t quite exactly the same size as hers to begin with (Kate’s were very slightly smaller), but still they were exactly the same cut of trouser.

  It wasn’t a freak event, either. Another time I went to the Joseph sale in London with a 19-year-old junior fashion editor who strongly resembled a walking French bean. I was a 26-year-old features editor who strongly resembled a piano stool. We bought the same Azzedine Alaïa dress.

  Nothing more complicated than a little slip of black Lycra, it pulled her waist in, pushed her mozzie-bite boobies out and curved her formica-flat behind into something more akin to Jessica Rabbit than her usual skinned rabbit. The same dress pulled my waist in, flattened my tummy and offered my bottie and bosom up like food for the gods. Or whoever else happened to be around.

  We looked at each other in amazement and rushed for the cash desk. From then on we referred to them as The Magic Dresses. How I wish I had bought two and laid one down to mature. Because after years in action as the ultimate party frock – dress it up, dress it down, take it off – the Lycra began to sag, the black faded to charcoal and The Magic Dress begged to be retired. It couldn’t bear to dance on one more table. I consigned it to a clothing bin with tears in my eyes.

  Since that day I must have tried on 150 little black Lycra dresses in an effort to replace it. No dice. They have variously pushed my stomach out, flattened my chest, squidged my bottom and made me feel about as attractive as a McDonald’s uniform.

  There are several morals to this tale:

  1. If an item of clothing makes you look hideous and misshapen, it’s not your fault. It’s the designer’s fault. A really good cut suits everybody. Quasimodo would have felt quite differently about himself in an Alaïa dress.

  2. Jackie Onassis was right. If a garment makes you instantly feel like a sexy Parisienne swinging down the avenue, buy two and save one for later.

  3. Shop in Paris.

  Boys of summer

  This one is for the boys. There is something we have to tell you. We hate your short-sleeved shirts. They may very well be practical under a suit for hot summer days, but they make your arms look stringy and weird and we want your arms to look knotty and strong.

  We particularly hate them with ties, because you remind us of maths teachers who made us do long division on the blackboard in front of the whole class (‘Carry three, okay. Er … where?’). And they make you look like Mormons, which might be fine if we were still hung up on little Donny Osmond, but actually we preferred David Cassidy, because he rolled his sleeves up.

  Rolled-up sleeves are dreamy. Just above the wrist they are the Flying Doctor about to do an emergency tonsillectomy in the bush. Cranked up to the bicep they are a smouldering mechanic about to do an emergency knickerectomy in a panel van. So don’t get the shears to them boys – roll ’em, roll ’em, roll ’em.

  But even more than those awful amputated business shirts, the menswear summer staple we completely and utterly loathe are those printed viscose fun shirts you wear at the weekend. They are so scruffy and unconvincing and something about those horrid muddy patterns makes the hair on your arms look dirty. We hate the sprouty open necks and the way the sleeves stick out and look dorky. One wash and they are a dishcloth. No amount of pressing can put life back into those rags. Bin them. Please. Stamp on them, call them names, set fire to them and then bin them.

  There is, however, one kind of short sleeve which we find acceptable in gentlemen’s warm-weather attire. That is the ribbing-edged short sleeve of the polo shirt. It’s all to do with physics. The slight puffing effect caused by the narrow band of ribbing on the cotton pique jersey makes even the scrawniest shoulder look plump and luscious.

  And on a man with a fine physique, like – oh I don’t know, a bronzed, sweating Argentinian polo player with his Moon in Aries and little gold flecks in his green eyes and shiny boots and a Breitling watch and a tattoo of a tiger on his … anyway, the effect is extremely erogenous. Even Prince Charles looks sexy in a polo shirt (as long as you put a bag over his head).

  But beware – those pretend polo shirts in smooth jersey with sticky-out nerd sleeves which people wear to play golf do not count, and should be banned by an act of parliament. Although, bizarrely, a very toffy Sydney golf club actually stipulates in its rule book that only flappy short sleeves can be worn on their greens.

  The section starts something like, ‘No sexually attractive clothing to be worn on Club premises. Members must look repulsive at all times. Nasty short-sleeved shirts, emerald-green plaid trousers and two-tone shoes preferred for tournaments.’ Well, that’s one club I’m very glad doesn’t want me as a member.

  So that’s the scoop, fellas. If you want to impress the chicks this summer, throw out the viscose and make Ralph Lauren a bit richer. And if you stick to your side of the bargain, we promise we’ll stop wearing leggings and big T-shirts. Deal?

  Emotional baggage

  Packing has a lot in common with method acting. Both require the mental exertion of re-experiencing powerful sense memories. And you’ll look like a total twit if you get either of them wrong.

  Assembling my neat capsule wardrobe for a forthcoming trip to Greece, I stand in my bedroom wearing a sundress and woolly socks, trying to remember what it feels like to trudge around piles of rubble in oxyacetylene sunshine.

  The sundress stays, and a light shirt, a water bottle and a fold-up hat get added to the growing pyramid of essential items. Lee Strasberg would be proud of me as I move on to the next exercise – summoning up the sensations of sitting outside a taverna with a brisk breeze blowing off the Aegean, wishing I’d packed a cardigan. On to the pile it goes. And more socks.

  It’s not a bad system for packing – better than those hilarious American catalogues which offer uncrushable blazers that fold down to the size of a pack of cards and uncrushable trousers which unzip into uncrushable shorts, with special clips from which to hang the unwanted lower legs. Hi! My name’s Marvin! I’m from Baltimore. Hot enough for ya?

  The only problem with method packing is that if you pursue it with vigour you actually start believing you’re someone else. As Marlon Brando would tell you.

  Moving through my holiday scenarios, I can feel the soft caress of my skimpy summer dress as I breeze along a dusty Greek lane, my taut, brown arms swinging a brightly coloured raffia bag. The bag will love the outing; it was bought in a moment of premenstrual madness and hasn’t been out since, because I feel like a pretentious prat holding it.

  But the Holiday Me loves that krazee bag. She also cunningly uses a tangle of brightly coloured scarves to dress up her simple co-ordinating outfits and feels confident going out in public with bare arms. Holiday Me pushes back her cuticles (well, there must be a reason there’s always an orange stick in my toilet bag when I get there) and enjoys Booker Prize-nominated novels. Which is why she always packs three of them and then Real Me has to shell out the equivalent of $30 for a Jilly Cooper paperback on day two.

  Holiday Me rinses out her undies each night (why waste space taking more than one pair? she asks briskly) and hangs them to dry on her travel clothes line, rather than wearing the same ones for three days before abandoning them altogether.

  And Holiday Me seems to spend a great deal of her time lingering languorously around in long slip dresses, watching the sun sink into the ocean on perfect balmy evenings.

  Her arms never get bitten by sandflies while she is doing it, so she never thinks to throw in the calamine lotion.

  One drawback is that Holiday Margare
t tends to have quite a bit of luggage because she wears several different outfits every day (probably to get into character), whereas the Real Margaret soon discovers that, away from peer pressure, she is quite happy to wear the same clothes for a week, just adding layers like sedimentary rock.

  So you’ll never see me waltzing past the baggage carousel with my neat carry-on bag. I’ll be the one shouldering a vast kitbag of assumed identities. Maybe one day I’ll get an Oscar for Best Supporting Wardrobe.

  Carry on packing

  Well, I’m back from Greece now. In the end I didn’t take it all with me, because a chance remark by a friend shamed me into travelling the carry-on way. ‘You’re just bringing a little in-flight bag, of course,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to be hanging around the airport waiting for you. We never check our luggage.’ So, to avoid total humiliation, I thought I’d better give it a go.

  What this carry-on malarkey actually means is cramming your possessions into one small but incredibly heavy squashy bag which you then have to lug around the airport like Sherpa Tenzing (or Sherpa Clarins, as my friend Sebastian calls himself on holiday).

  It might feel really super at the other end as you sweep straight from the plane and snare the only taxi on the rank, while everyone else waits for the baggage handlers to finish their afternoon siesta, but it really gets in the way of those pre-flight airport pleasures, let me tell you.

  Airport shopping is often the best part of a holiday as far as I am concerned. Being in transit seems to bring out some kind of latent insecurity which makes me want to buy everything in sight. Obviously I am not the only one with this affliction. Some of the best shopping in Sydney is at the International Terminal, and London’s Gatwick Airport is a huge shopping mall with runways attached. You can buy things like lawn-mowers there.