The City Vs. The Reality

Now lookie, I totally heart Diane von Furstenberg. For me, she’s one of the few designers where, if I could pay full retail price for her stuff, I might. But I can’t.

Other twentysomethings in The City apparently don’t have that problem. Yes, I occasionally watch the show; yes, I’m wildly entertained by it; yes, I enjoy pretending I don’t utter the same cliched girly bullshit (verbatim) as the gals onscreen. There’s really only one thing about the show I can’t stand (aside from that douchebaggy, wannabe-rockstar Aussie ).

It’s not that Whit and sidekick Olivia work at my fave designer’s headquarters. It’s that they have absolutely no concept of or appreciation for what Diane von Furstenberg costs. Based on the clothes they wear, the shoes they walk in and the bags they carry, the girls in The City send a damaging message to real girls in real cities: Buy it now, worry about it later.

That cavalier attitude toward high-end stuff was the same reason Carrie had to use Charlotte’s wedding ring to make a down payment on her apartment. If you choose your Manolos over your mortgage, you’ve clearly failed to grasp that there’s something sexier than a stiletto, and it’s called Not Being A Cliche. At least in SOTC, Carrie endured the consequences of her irrational spending (humiliation, debt, potential homelessness). The girls in The City are just too young and fabulous to bother with annoying stuff like shopping on their own dime. And the fact that they buy into all things Fashion under the guise of Reality makes them even shittier examples of female city-dwellers than Ms. Bradshaw herself.

Scenario: Whit is assigned the, like, really big important task of pitching Diane von Furstenberg’s new handbag line to like, 25 Fashion bigwigs. OMFGeeee. These bags are sooo fabulous, and practical too maybe? Whit attempts to put together a presentation while Olivia talks about really pretty colors, and then they talk about boys.

I’m okay with the above, because it makes me feel smart. What I’m NOT okay with is the omission of the one thing about the bags that actually matters: How much they cost. The brown suede Peggy Wrap Bag pictured is $1,475.00. That should give you an idea.

Shows like The City are oft pitched as “aspirational” – we can’t afford what we they wear, so we’ll enjoy it by living vicariously through them. Right, because I love having things I can’t afford thrown in my face. Sooo fun.

I don’t care who you are or where you come from, and neither does this Economic Shitstorm – sooner or later, the money runs out. If you learn to shop The City’s wardrobe secondhand and banish from your mind any other means of acquiring it, you’ll ultimately be in much better shape than the girls wearing it on screen.

Because realizing you can’t buy thousand dollar handbags on a PR Glamtard’s salary is a serious bitch…an even bigger one than me.