Tuesday, March 4, 2008

        “Having money doesn’t mean you have good taste.”  My mother has been reminding me of this pearl of wisdom since I was a little girl.  Spending half of my childhood surrounded by rich, conservative WASP’s, I quickly understood what my mother meant.  Grosse Pointers were always decked out in expensive everyday “yuppie wear.”  This included Dockers, Chinos, Polo, Ralph Lauren…you get the picture.  Stuffy, uptight crap.  Was it really that important to sport an alligator on your shirt?  My mom was right, and I thought I’d seen it all.  Until I moved to Los Angeles and was introduced to what I call “Designer Trash.”  There are many different ways LA women THINK they’re dressing funky, or embracing their own sense of style, but they can’t be serious.

        The first staple of the “Designer Trash” look is the larger-than-necessary-bug-eye-designer-name-brand sunglasses.  My theory on the popularity of the bug-eye look is two-fold; everyone in LA wants to look young, while secretly yearning to be a rock star.  The biggest and coolest rock star on the planet?  Bono.  Shame on you, Bono.  Once LA women realized they could look like their rock god AND protect their eyes from the sun’s wrinkly rays, these sunglasses spread like a California wildfire (too soon?).  But c’mon, ladies.  Do you really have to pay hundreds of dollars for the designer version of something that’s just gonna get lost in a month or break in the bottom of your oversized Gucci purse?  I paid $25 bucks at the mall kiosk for mine and I look just as stupid as you do.

        The next “Designer Trash” must-have is really a category; SKINNY.  The sexiest thing you can be in LA as a woman is paper-thin, rail-thin, knobby-knee, skin-and-bones, turn-sideways-and-disappear skinny.  Getting skinny is the most extensive waste of money in this city of angels.  This involves things such as diet pills, diet plans, gym memberships, home gyms, pilates classes, personal trainers, colonics and flushes of all kinds, plastic surgery, starvation, and the always fashionable eating disorders and designer drugs.  If it has no smell or taste, it can’t be bad for you, can it girls?  Then, we can all slip into our size zero skinny jeans, park our skinny

little sports cars in the Starbucks parking lot while we run in and buy ourselves a Skinny Latte (which is delicious, by the way, and only 130 calories for a Grande.  And they have sugar-free syrups.  Yum.). 

        And when did jeans become as tight as leggings? When fashion designers decided to make jeans skinny enough to tuck inside of the ultimate in “Designer Trashion” ™; the Ugg.  There.  I said it.  Never in the history of footwear has something been so hideous.  All of the sudden, it’s not only acceptable but trendy to roll out of bed and slide into an oversized pair of bedroom slippers?  No.  Definitely not.  Not five years ago, not now, not ever.  Question; do you live in a trailer park?  Then why are you dressing like you do?  It’s not only the ladies of LA committing this heinous crime of fashion.  Women all over the country have latched onto this trend; New York, Detroit, Chicago, Florida, Texas, ALL OVER!  Women of America, put down your credit cards.  You’ve been tricked!  Bamboozled!  You look like got dang Eskimos!  All of you!

         No, wait.  On second thought, go crazy.  Open up your closet and put on that wacky tacky.  When I pass the elite “Designer Trash” on the streets of LA, I’ll think about how sad it is that someone so perfect has such sweaty feet.  And I’ll smile.