Flair (or despair) for fashion

Thursday, 26 March 2009 09:28

I confess I always wanted my daughters to be doctors, lawyers or just plain old ordinary multimillionaires so I could comfortably retire at 45 and live a life of leisure, fly-fishing in the mountains or roughing it at Mohegan Sun.

Toward that modest goal, I spent months arguing with them about career choices. Never mind what they wanted to do. This was about what I wanted them to do.

It all started when two of them insisted they were destined for careers in “fashion,” which to me means the netherworld of creepy people like Donatella Versace and Kate Moss and a lot of skinny women with so much makeup and eyeliner they resemble the Munsters — and I don’t mean the pretty blonde.

In Milan, the Mecca of the trendy and faddish, designers were recently peddling their latest creations, and I was horrified to see the models on the runway looked like the cast from the movie “Gladiator.”

Fashion, to my philistine mind, is where the chic converges with the absurd and decadent, and I’m always troubled by designers who pay poor kids pennies in developing countries to make clothes they sell for outrageous prices in America, where girls stampede over one another to buy a designer label.

One of my daughters got on this path at age nine, when her teacher remarked, “You have such a flair for fashion.” That compliment haunted us for years.

You see, I grew up in a place called Pine Rock Park and never had this flair, which I assume she got from her mother or Lucky magazine. As a kid, I wore “dungarees” — designer jeans hadn’t been invented — and they didn’t cost $175, which is what my daughters sometimes pay to satisfy their compulsive flair.

Anyway, when it came time for college, the flair took another bad turn, and we got into fights over whether they’d enroll in the Fashion Institute or settle for a career in, say, accounting or medical billing, where you’ll always have a job.

“Every girl in America wants to be a super model or a fashion designer,” I said. “What about pre-med or pre-law or pre-multimillionaire?”

Despite my persistence, one daughter now works for a major apparel chain, and the other buys and sells for a high-end boutique. Fortunately, no one is a super model.

I thought of those family skirmishes recently when I saw a story about the reality series “Make Me a Supermodel,” in which 16 upstarts compete for $100,000 and a contract. They all had that zombie-like Zoolander look, pouty lips and too much eyeliner, and were in serious need of a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

The wannabes even caused mayhem on the streets of Manhattan when several thousand young women pushed and shoved to get into an audition for Tyra Banks’ show “America’s New Top Model.”

There were arrests and injuries, which led me to believe if they don’t make it as models, they can always set their sights on the World Wrestling Enterainment.

Joe Pisani has been a writer and editor for 30 years. He and his wife, Sandy, have four daughters. Questions or comments, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .