I am getting way too many laughs out of reading this book about fashion. Some of it is utterly hideous, particularly the way various luxury houses behaved during the French occupation in World War Two -- that's actually why I'm reading it in the first place, because conversations about beauty and morality in the Wolf House books usually use the second world war as a touchstone, as evidenced by the very first conversation in the first book, when Rose talks about Audrey Hepburn dancing silently in secret for the Allies.
And some of my characters, in particular Ashley and Alexander, know their fashion history, and so I need to as well.
But some of this stuff is much too crazy and hilariously stupid for me to include even in a trashy vampire novel. Example:
this article about the Karl Lagerfeld diet. "Do you have enough moral strength? Without real commitment, without the determination to understand and accept the diet, all those who embark upon it are destined to failure."
I mean, it's not actually all that funny, because I fucking loathe when women abstain from cake at a party and everyone goes "oooh, you're being good!", or someone buys a chocolate bar at a newsagent and tells the cashier "I'm being naughty!" or whatever. FOOD IS NOT A MORAL CHOICE, JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST. I mean, unless you're talking a religious-based diet or spiritual veganism or not being a cannibal -- those are moral choices related to the consumption or food.
I won't buy anything but free-range eggs: THAT is a moral choice. Whether or not I have pizza for dinner every night for a month, on the other hand? NOT a moral choice. A very poor choice, but not for morality-related reasons.
Or there's this gem: "A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul.... A diet does not need a philosophical explanation, nor all those excuses behind which people often feel the need to take refuge".
... uh, Karl. You are confused. And stupid. But kind of hilarious in a confused and stupid way.
The biggest indicator that I am Doing Fashion Wrong, however, comes from my reaction to the paragraph in the Dana Thomas book I'm reading about how luxe sux, regarding the early life of Coco Chanel:
"After their mother died of tuberculosis when Gabrielle was eleven, their father deposited the girls in an orphanage in the rustic region of Auvergne and was never to be seen again. At eighteen, Gabrielle was sent to a Catholic boarding school where the nuns taught her how to sew. She worked as a shopgirl for a local lingerie company and moonlighted at a tailor's shop."My first thoughts were a) Auvergne! THAT'S WHERE LESTAT GREW UP! and b) orphanage and then working at a tailor's? IT'S RORSCHACH!!
And let's not lie, I would buy the shit out of any luxury handbag which Rorschach put on the market. Even if he was dirty, smelled like beans, and called all his customers whores, he still wouldn't be nearly so gross as Karl.
