Market de Carabas
Nov. 12th, 2006 12:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d_aulnoyToday has been a white stone day. Or, rather, a grey suit day, which is even better.
Anybody who still remembers who the hell I am, given the long hiatus between posts, will probably also remember that I am on the market. (Hence, the long hiatus.) Being on the market is a type-A personality's worst nightmare, because, even when one is fairly competent at micro-managing the various aspects of one's existence, there are elements that are ... beyond one's control. Will the line at the post office be so long that you cannot send your carefully prepared applications off in a timely fashion? Will your readers be suffering from migraine headaches that cause them to hate everything they read that day? Even with those, though, one can retain the illusion of control: say, by making sure to go to the post office by 2 in the afternoon at the latest, or by obsessing over the choice of font, well, obsessively. One thing that might be beyond your control, though? What else is on the market. No, not who.
What isn't on the market, generally speaking, is normal women's wear. It may be jumping the gun to assume interviews, but on the off-chance that I get any ... I was hating the idea of either, a) showing up in something three years out of date (I mean, yes, poor-but-honest is a nice impression to give, but it also strikes me as being fairly ignimonious to be forced to admit it), b) buying some crappy disposable suit at the last minute, or c) having a nervous breakdown over what is probably the least important aspect of my total presentation. Because, people, it really is that bad out there. I've raved about dumb fashions, and I've kvetched about vanity sizing, and I've moaned about the inexplicable shortage of decent professional garb for females, but, damn.
vschanoes and I have both spent over a month suit-shopping. A month. And it has been bleak. Being a broke graduate student, I began my quest by checking the discount stores: I found a lovely light-weight wool charcoal blazer - from Italy! on sale! for $50! - but was it paired with a skirt? For that matter, was it paired with slacks? It was not. It was paired with Little Lord Fauntleroy-esque knee breeches. Thanks, fashion industry. We who are about to interview really thank you for the whole concept of formal shorts.
I moved on from the discount stores, in desperation. I went up one side of the island and down the other: from the Upper East Side to the East Village, from the kinds of stores where the salespeople sniff at you when you ask if their dressing room has an, um, door, to the kind of stores where they serve you champagne as they try to finagle you into believing that a $4000 dollar suit is an investment that will surely be amortized when the interviewers are so floored by your ensemble that they will just hire you on the spot so as to be able to admire the cut of your jacket. And, frankly? They were all wretched. Apparently, the fashion industry does not believe that women ... work. I mean, I like me some velvet, god knows, but how can it be so hard to find a simple woman's suit? These days, it is really hard. Every normal-looking suit was either paired with the obnoxious knee breeches, or decorated with some hideous trim, or only available in kelly green, god help me (I mean, given what I study, I don't object to the association with J.M. Barrie, but I'd rather it wasn't the first thing that people thought of when they saw me), or otherwise somehow ... off. For example, the $4000 dollar suit that came with the champagne? Had a fishtail. My father had a blast discussing the origins of the fashion with the saleslady, and quibbling over whether it was technically a fishtail or a chaunticleer, and she had a fine time attempting to convince me that all of her clients in business were buying it, but, come on. They might buy it, but I sure as hell wasn't about to.
ellen_kushner kindly offered to loan me her beautiful pale grey cashmere suit from France: it is one of the most beautiful garments that I have ever seen, and I kept having nightmare visions of someone generously offering me a cup of coffee that I would promptly spill on myself. But after I tried Prada (which, seriously, has got to be the most overhyped label I've ever seen: did you know that they paired an otherwise inoffensive jacket with jodphurs? No? Well, how about the fact that they made a skirt that looked like it had pleats but that in fact turned out to be made of strips of fabric which gaped to the hip the second the wearer attempted to walk?), I began to seriously consider the notion, just because, well, being the kind and generous lady that she is, I was pretty sure that she wouldn't kill me if I did (though she might be seriously tempted - this suit is just that nice). But then, I was saved.
By Brooks Brothers. Seriously, I take back every bad thing I ever said about yuppies, because where Burberry failed me, where Bergdorf's brought me to the brink of tears, where Saks made me contemplate the possibility that there was some bizarre cross-over between reality and Wonderland and that all the buyers were sitting around cackling "We're all mad here!" to themselves, Brooks Brothers presented me with a nice, light-grey, light-weight wool suit with a pencil skirt and a tailored blue blouse for less that $500 bucks. Bless you, Siblings Brooks: on behalf of the professional women of New York, I thank you. And, better yet, recommend you. Highly.
P.S. - They're having a sale. 25% off if you open an account with them through tomorrow. Hurry.
Anybody who still remembers who the hell I am, given the long hiatus between posts, will probably also remember that I am on the market. (Hence, the long hiatus.) Being on the market is a type-A personality's worst nightmare, because, even when one is fairly competent at micro-managing the various aspects of one's existence, there are elements that are ... beyond one's control. Will the line at the post office be so long that you cannot send your carefully prepared applications off in a timely fashion? Will your readers be suffering from migraine headaches that cause them to hate everything they read that day? Even with those, though, one can retain the illusion of control: say, by making sure to go to the post office by 2 in the afternoon at the latest, or by obsessing over the choice of font, well, obsessively. One thing that might be beyond your control, though? What else is on the market. No, not who.
What isn't on the market, generally speaking, is normal women's wear. It may be jumping the gun to assume interviews, but on the off-chance that I get any ... I was hating the idea of either, a) showing up in something three years out of date (I mean, yes, poor-but-honest is a nice impression to give, but it also strikes me as being fairly ignimonious to be forced to admit it), b) buying some crappy disposable suit at the last minute, or c) having a nervous breakdown over what is probably the least important aspect of my total presentation. Because, people, it really is that bad out there. I've raved about dumb fashions, and I've kvetched about vanity sizing, and I've moaned about the inexplicable shortage of decent professional garb for females, but, damn.
vschanoes and I have both spent over a month suit-shopping. A month. And it has been bleak. Being a broke graduate student, I began my quest by checking the discount stores: I found a lovely light-weight wool charcoal blazer - from Italy! on sale! for $50! - but was it paired with a skirt? For that matter, was it paired with slacks? It was not. It was paired with Little Lord Fauntleroy-esque knee breeches. Thanks, fashion industry. We who are about to interview really thank you for the whole concept of formal shorts. I moved on from the discount stores, in desperation. I went up one side of the island and down the other: from the Upper East Side to the East Village, from the kinds of stores where the salespeople sniff at you when you ask if their dressing room has an, um, door, to the kind of stores where they serve you champagne as they try to finagle you into believing that a $4000 dollar suit is an investment that will surely be amortized when the interviewers are so floored by your ensemble that they will just hire you on the spot so as to be able to admire the cut of your jacket. And, frankly? They were all wretched. Apparently, the fashion industry does not believe that women ... work. I mean, I like me some velvet, god knows, but how can it be so hard to find a simple woman's suit? These days, it is really hard. Every normal-looking suit was either paired with the obnoxious knee breeches, or decorated with some hideous trim, or only available in kelly green, god help me (I mean, given what I study, I don't object to the association with J.M. Barrie, but I'd rather it wasn't the first thing that people thought of when they saw me), or otherwise somehow ... off. For example, the $4000 dollar suit that came with the champagne? Had a fishtail. My father had a blast discussing the origins of the fashion with the saleslady, and quibbling over whether it was technically a fishtail or a chaunticleer, and she had a fine time attempting to convince me that all of her clients in business were buying it, but, come on. They might buy it, but I sure as hell wasn't about to.
ellen_kushner kindly offered to loan me her beautiful pale grey cashmere suit from France: it is one of the most beautiful garments that I have ever seen, and I kept having nightmare visions of someone generously offering me a cup of coffee that I would promptly spill on myself. But after I tried Prada (which, seriously, has got to be the most overhyped label I've ever seen: did you know that they paired an otherwise inoffensive jacket with jodphurs? No? Well, how about the fact that they made a skirt that looked like it had pleats but that in fact turned out to be made of strips of fabric which gaped to the hip the second the wearer attempted to walk?), I began to seriously consider the notion, just because, well, being the kind and generous lady that she is, I was pretty sure that she wouldn't kill me if I did (though she might be seriously tempted - this suit is just that nice). But then, I was saved.By Brooks Brothers. Seriously, I take back every bad thing I ever said about yuppies, because where Burberry failed me, where Bergdorf's brought me to the brink of tears, where Saks made me contemplate the possibility that there was some bizarre cross-over between reality and Wonderland and that all the buyers were sitting around cackling "We're all mad here!" to themselves, Brooks Brothers presented me with a nice, light-grey, light-weight wool suit with a pencil skirt and a tailored blue blouse for less that $500 bucks. Bless you, Siblings Brooks: on behalf of the professional women of New York, I thank you. And, better yet, recommend you. Highly.
P.S. - They're having a sale. 25% off if you open an account with them through tomorrow. Hurry.