Thursday, November 11, 2010

Coat Watching Today

As I leave the house in the upper west on this slightly crisp morning, my gloves lie eagerly on the counter in the hall, yipping for a walk. They happily snug over my hands and dance around the door handle. I do not go people watching in the mornings, as people are largely wallpaper and more predictable than a hedgehog. I, MY readers, go coat watching.

Today Mrs Kernel's coat greets the letterbox begrudgingly. It shrugs under the shoulders and lopsidedly grimaces at the neck. Further down the street, two close friends greet each other, then tangle when stepping back from embrace. This is slightly mortifying for each. One tries to tuck away it's fraying hem, the other silently vows to have its buttons removed. Ms Rothesteinchildsson's coat follows behind her like a happy puppy, nuzzling in all the right places. Her coats always Do What They're Told.

My good friend Karl is in town and is staying in his apartment uptown. He has had assistance paint all the windows black so that the sunlight doesn't get cheeky. I have a gift for him under my left arm, wrapped unassumingly in burburry wrapping paper - excellent for a cold day. Someone with a thousand little stars painted on their face and entirely few clothes yells out to my parcel in a quaint accent. I freeze her with my eyes and keep walking.

Karl's bow needs rehairing today. Poor, little bow. It's frizzy like a frump. I know what you are thinking, readers. You think that Karl is playing the Cello - au contraire. He quite liked the idea of playing an instrument, so he went to the store and bought what appealed. Upon realizing you cannot make music with just a bow, he now uses it to whip assistants when he wants things done.

It gets rehaired every two weeks.

- Just because I do not know the meaning of my paintings when I paint them, does not mean they have no meaning.
The man at the coffee shop's coat tells me this. Was that Dali? It does not reply.

I stop at Tiffanies.
- Are these blood diamonds?
The attendant looks horrified.
- I only like blood diamonds. They have a certain edge.
The assistant's lip curls - We do not sell blood diamonds
- AND why not?
- Because they are the result of human slave trafficking and the money goes to tyrants who abuse their workers -
- Oh! I hadn't realized De Beers had taken over the blood diamond market!
A single, thin, gloved finger, hovers over my lip like a stray branch. - I guess one should have assumed that would happen.
The assistant presses a button under the counter. I depart leading neck first. I do love an early morning assistant sashing.

I reach Karl's apartment and knock out a death knell. An assistant answers the door with a red stripe running the length of his face.
- I have bought Karl a new bow. - I say - So that he needent be without whilst his favourite is getting rehaired.
The assistant's expression is hard to discern.
- Run along, now, and find me some champagne. I am very thirsty after a good walk.

22 comments:

michael said...

"burburry"...? "Tiffanies" O_o

Diana... these errors are very demode. Karl should give you a lashing with the bow.

Diana said...

Please do not BE so presumptuous that such things would happen WITHOUT intention. Mistakes, my dear micheal, are what happen to other people.

Burburry because it is cold, and unassuming. I would quite like to nuzzle into my BurBURRY on a cold day. As for Tiffanies I had chose to spell it as such because there are more than one. After all, diamonds are a girls best trend.

Might I add, I was deeply disappointed when the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's was not, in fact, about breakfast at all. That is Capote duplicity for you.

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michael said...

Diana... if I hadn't ripped my heart out and sent it to Unlce Karl last Valentine's Day, it would break now. Spelling is one thing, but that blasphemy about "Breakfast at Tiffany's"... compound your offenses. Never presume to speak ill of that film. It's in the Chanel Bible and cannot be reproached.


*clutches Chanel bible and rocks back and forth*

Diana said...

Dear Micheall,

Your heart is in the right place, but Capote would turn in his grave if I pretended to sanction that wretched "moo-vee".

I shall henceforth call the "moo-vee" "Breakfast at Tiffanies" and the novella "Breakfast at Tiffanys" to mirror my opinion of the bastardisation of a great work.

Having completed my decision, I shall now cease all conversation.

Kindest Regards,

D. Vreeland.

Karl Lagerfeld said...

Dear Michael,

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a fantastic, perfect novella by Truman Capote, who was a genius. As a movie it is...typical, and has become somewhat overrated, largely driven by people who have seen the movie but not read the book- and possibly regard Ms. Hepburn as their Number One Style Icon. Ms. Hepburn is passé. And besides, she wore Givenchy- certainly not Chanel, and therefore not even a mention in the Chanel bible, even as a walk-on part.

Karl

michael said...

Uncle Karl... I weep -_-

When you mention 3 letters LBD... Two names come to mind, Coco Chanel the Creator and Audrey the Icon. She may have wore Givenchy, but in the 1960s she was dressed almost exclusively by Coco Chanel herself. Audrey and Liz Taylor were some of the women who first helped Mother Coco cross over to America after that whole Nazi scandal. She was also photographed with her several times. Even in her biographies (which I call the Chanel Bible), LBD almost always includes an Audrey reference. The movie Breakfast at Tiffany's remains one of the most undeniably "Fashion" movies. The demode may have never read the book, but anyone who has knows the book is not very "fashion". That is why Mr. Capote wanted to cast Marilyn and not Audrey. He expressed his regrets soon after. And Uncle Karl, to call Ms. Hepburn passe... was it not less than a year ago that the House of Chanel and you Uncle Karl were praising Ms. Hepburn. Was not the ad campaign you shot with Lily Allen themed after Ms. Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Were you not gushing over Ms. Hepburn as an inspiration. So both of your critques are not very in the know. Ms. Hepburn has and never will be passé. Satire is not an excuse for such poor spelling and disregard for the facts...

- Michael

Thupamodel said...

Well written! Charming & funny.. Glad I found your blog, Karrrl.

xo
Thupamodel.com

Diana said...

Dearest Mikhealle,

I swore myself off this conversation, I AM surprised K came out of his blackened apartment for it, but I might mention one thing.

Capote Duplicity. Dearest Karl has it in his spades, as one might say. Just because you know the facts, does not mean you know the truth.

Kindest Regards.

D. Vreeland

Miscellaneous said...

HAAAhahahah. Oh man, this scrap is hilarious.

Satire, as Terry Pratchett will be able to tell you, is often set in a world of it's own. Do you honestly believe that Anna shoots people and tempts Karl out with draws of fingerless gloves? Do you actually believe that Diana is still alive?! No. You claiming that they are "disregarding the facts" is kinda hilarious.

michael said...

Fury...

This blog is satire, correct. Facts + Exaggeration= Satire. In order for satire to work you have to be able to somewhat believe it. Would you believe a famed fashion writer such as Vreeland wouldn't know how to spell Burberry or Tiffany's? Would you believe that Karl doesn't know of Audrey's ties to himself and Chanel? This post was very funny, I really enjoyed it, but those slips in character... non!

Karl Lagerfeld said...

Dear Mikeal,

Are you secretly one of those terrible teenage girls on tumblr who worship Ms. Hepburn and post her every picture? Are you also one of those girls who post about how she is your Number One Style Icon, perhaps with- "ALL YOU NEED IS SOME KOOL SHADES AND A LBD"? I suspect that you are.

Coco Chanel was an out-of-date old biddy by the 1960s. She said to everyone "no, no, these mini-skirts are not chic", and who wants to argue with an elderly woman? What Coco thinks, and thought, is uninteresting to me, as is what my opinion on this Lily Allen and Ms. Hepburn was a year ago. You make repeated references to fashion, and yet you seem to forget that a year is a very long time ago. It is the past. It is demode. It has been guillotined and thrown to the fishes. A year ago is passe.

One sentence of yours disturbs me in particular. "The demode may have never read the book, but anyone who has knows the book is not very "fashion"."

Who are you to say what "fashion" is, dear Mickell? The movie is not very good. It has a terrible cat-in-the-rain ending, incredibly soppy and happy. Fashion, if it is anything, is not about being soppy and happy and cats-in-the-rain. Mickey Rooney is horribly miscast, as is George Peppard. It's a movie for people with a spillage of milk for a brain. The novella was never intended to be fashion in the way which the movie has- a empty and hollow icon for people who eat celery and think pictures of unmade beds are artistic. It is fashion in the way I am, or the way a Faulkner novel is. There is a difference.

While I refuse to call my blog satire, I will point out, once again, that as well as you not having the credentials to say what is "fashion", nor do you have the knowledge to say what satire should and shouldn't be. D's misspellings were intentional, something you seem to fail to understand. Perhaps if you read less biographies of Coco Chanel and more literature, you would be able to understand why, instead of going into a sook about "poor misspellings" like some angsty 4th grade teacher.

As for Marilyn, she was a far better actress. Ms. Hepburn could not act her way out of a soap opera.

Miscellaneous said...

Michael, if you take your argument from the other stance - obviously DV WOULD know how to spell these, as she is svelt and well read - the breaking character is only your refusing to give artistic liscence. So long as they are able to explain their decisions - of which I am giving them benefit of the doubt, here, and keep to their world (which may mean elaborate, intricate and bizzare explanations) then these "slips in character" aren't actually that.

michael said...

My last comment was deleted...

*shrugs*

Sophie Frances said...

I find you being one of the most entertaining bloggers out there. Although you can be a bit bazaar i truly love this stuff. I am one of the only awkward teen girls out there that will say this is truly great. Your spelling errors are hilarious though seriously? burbbury? ha!
roma

Patricia said...

Blood diamond bit was too f'ing funny!
Cupcake
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Anonymous said...

ha ha blood diamonds! u r too funny and black. Love ur post in 2008 about marc jacobs "sorting hat" totally agree.
winnsomesmile.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I know we're not supposed to give such "insider information" away but...Rule of Thumb: Fashionable people know everything. They know it naturally, it is ingrained in their every molecule of being. How they do it? Trust me, we don't TRY to do it, we just know it...how? Because we're interesting people that are interested in interesting things. Things such as literature, art, fashion, photography, dance, music, history, wine, gastronomy, the future...

And once you know it, you play with it. Exhibit A: http://www.fakekarl.com/

We are very well rounded...well not physically, but you know, intellectually.

larapollinare said...

agreed, a.k.
what the children don't know is that to manifest the fashion one must not try, but simply do and be.

constant flux of ideas, tastes, and opinions are a natural consequence of enjoying the world, and a naturally fashionable self is born refracting its decadence in high collars much more brightly than one of those tiffanies coal-bits.

for example, today i wear black robes and wrap myself in fur from talking to Sam Beckett over bananas about the cold diaphanous void in relation to the experience of being subsumed into Mark's darkness in a late Rothko.

pretentious. no. why? because anyone may read, or stand in front of a late Rothko and think and feel in order to write and respond to the world apparent.
what you lack, children, is discipline and curiosity.

do you KNOW how much F. Scott Fitzty and Jimmy Joyce worshiped clothes? no? or that Arthur Miller gave our sweet Marilyn Ulysses to read and that she was a fabulous cook? that several of Hemingway's wives were editors at vogue even before anna? truly fashionable people are fashionable by incident, as a by-product of the hard work of general creativity.

read more books, and dress accordingly. like more complex things, and you will be like them.

Very Vogue said...

I love your blog...so witty and enjoyable to read!
The mistakes add to the wittiness of it all too...and the reasons for the mistakes, I love!

(Burburry because it is cold, and unassuming. I would quite like to nuzzle into my BurBURRY on a cold day. As for Tiffanies I had chose to spell it as such because there are more than one. After all, diamonds are a girls best trend.)

Take a peak at my blog and please tell me what you think of it...

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