New Blog

Well, well, well. What's this all about? Unfortunately, it's just as it sounds. I "opened" a new blog today. It is called SF Styleoscope and it is meant to galvanize the fashion community in San Francisco and hopefully to get people who are not so interested in fashion a little more interested.


San Francisco dresses well, don't get me wrong. But they dress so SAFELY. And they cancelled their fashion week. The blog is still in the beta stage, but hop on over there to see some stylish folks that showed up at H&M today due to the launch of the Comme des Garcons collection.


Those racks were teeming with garments not five minutes ago. But then frenzied shoppers descended on them and ripped all the clothes off in a matter of minutes. It was pretty crazy. But let's start at the beginning:

Having never stood in line for anything, I went to H&M because I am a staunch supporter of Japanese fashion and of fashion in general (as we well know). Stood in line for an hour and a half dodging pigeon crap falling like missiles from the sky and watching the security guard trying vainly to keep people out of the doorways of the other stores. I also amused myself by gawking at the hard-core-ers who had camped out and were now huddled under a blanket with steaming cups of coffee. Starbucks was doing quite a lively trade that morning. Yes, more so than usual.

Perhaps because I looked the most wholesome and approachable, but most likely because I was alone, I was approached on more than one occasion and asked to speak as spokesperson for the crazy-people-in-line. The first time a homeless man approached and asked belligerently if we were in line for a video game. I laughed out loud because, well, because. Video game? Me? Nevah. Before he could kill me with his shiv, I quickly explained we were waiting for the Comme des Garcons collection. But when you say Comme des Garcons to an American, they get confused. They expect names like Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Names that are actually names. And pronounceable.

My next encounter was a sweet old couple who thought we were in line for a sale. Ha! These days, you don't line up for sales. They line up for you, thanks to the crashing economy. And once again, when I said Comme des Garcons, the women looked at me gently, like she knew every single designer, and this wasn't one of them, and I had been fooled and was standing in line for nothing. Then they gently wafted away.

When the doors at last opened, people sprinted. I kid you not. So the slow runners, even if they were 41st in line, ended up 103rd in the door. And I don't know how she did it, but a mother got in there with her child in a stroller. Who takes their kid to a mosh pit? People were grabbing and shoving and then scuttling away to corners to sort through their pile. Consequently, a lucky few scavengers were able to snap up the discards. But most people weren't discarding. Oh, no. They were saving for the trading stage.

So the next stage was trading. As the lucky few who had been in the door first stood waiting to pay, everyone else skulked about asking furtively: you got anything to trade? I hadn't, as before I had been made aware of the trading stage, I had given away the skirt I decided I didn't love. So I had nothing left to trade, but that was okay because no one had seen hide or hair of the coat that I really wanted. It was as if it had never existed. So I left empty handed.

But of course, not really, because this made me get my other blog up and running.