A few Saturday nights ago in L.A., my nephew Jeremy Falk (MacMan, the Mac technician to the stars) arranged for our Southern California relatives to have dinner together. He made the reservations at Red O restaurant, Chicago chef Rick Bayless' new place on Melrose.
The place is so hip you have to have a reservation to even get through the outer gate. Inside the restaurant, a heavy wooden door later, the beautiful people were dining on exquisite Mexican cuisine. And yes, the people were beautiful.
The women's clothes were breathtaking, their eyes lilly pond liquid, their skin lubricated, and their hair swept, splashed, teased and tampered with. The men were L.A. casual, which is the same as Midwest casual except hundreds of dollars more going into cardigans. Their jeans had holes in all the right places, and looked well worn, like they had been chewed on for days by European aristocrats.
The food arrived and the guacamole was perfection, but every time I got a chip ready I was blinded by a ray-gun light from the next table. One of the two women was wearing a diamond bracelet that reflected every facet of the crystal chandeliers every time she smoothed her eyebrows. (The other woman at the table couldn't lift her arm to eat her tortilla soup because of her many bejeweled bracelets.)
At the table on the other side of us was a man in chains. On his wrists, around his neck, and who knows where else. His date was in chains, too; long ones that kept clunking on the table. It was daunting.
I loved every minute of it. Here in Northern California we're much more conservative. Personally, I always feel I'm wearing the right thing at the wrong place. In two weeks I'm going to a three-day meeting in Atlanta where they said the dress is business casual --- another wonderful opportunity to misinterpret the rules.
My curiosity and interest are always peaked by the energy and enthusiasm of people who are interested in fashion. My students are always up on the latest, and many have distinct styles of their own. I applaud them for it, and we use their fashion sense as the bases for many resounding discussions in marketing classes. We don't seem to spend time on bling, though. Maybe we should.
Clothes may or may not make the person. But they certainly make the person interesting.
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