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7 Shopping Tips from the September Issues

September 30, 2009

September is the time of year when fashion magazines try to outdo each other with the “mine is bigger than yours” competition usually reserved for the boys. Vogue won the prize this year at just under two and a half pounds, with 447 of its 584 pages devoted to ad space.

This season’s mandate: appear to acknowledge the recession while repackaging frivolous, insanely expensive items as smart, economical purchases. The following is what I gleaned from the magazines’ advice on how to indulge my inner greedhead in these dark recessionary times. Apparently, saving money involves spending stupid amounts of it.

1. Cunnilingus sells shoes. (Well, duh! Of course it does!)

This ad appeared in Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar and Allure. Tear it out and watch your significant other search for the shoe, then immediately take you shopping…for anything.

2. Shop your closet.

Everyone knows that when money is tight, we can’t afford to buy head-to-toe designer looks. For this reason, InStyle advises accessorizing the $395 chiffon wrap that is undoubtedly already hanging in your closet with the D-Bag from Tod’s. No, it’s not a feminine hygiene product. It’s a purse which retails for $1,445 and is named in memory of Princess Diana. She would be so proud.

How did shopping my closet get so expensive? The several receptacles I already own are not up to snuff. Who am I to argue with the experts?

3. Indulge in life’s little luxuries.

Vogue writes of the “new economy”:

Irrationally exuberant spending has been replaced by carefully considered decisions about getting our money’s worth–like the smart buys on these pages, made by designers exclusively for Vogue.

One of these “pick-me-ups that won’t bring you down” is a $495 lipstick case.

There’s something so wonderfully ingenious about this invented necessity. I had been unaware that my lipstick case pined for a wardrobe of its own. I’d been considering saving on lipstick by dragging my mouth across a stucco wall for some color. Now I need to steal $500 and shoplift some Revlon in order to feel complete.

4. Consult the stars.

From my horoscope in Allure:

Saturn–the planet that’s caused you misery these past two years–finally does you a favor when it conjoins the Sun in Virgo on the 17th. It’ll still cost you time and money to resolve the issue, but the price is worth it for the peace of mind you’ll get in return.

Fucking Saturn. Even the heavens want me to go shopping.

5. You deserve a piece of the pie, even if you can’t afford a piece of pie.

The normally populist Us Weekly rationalizes deficit spending in its 28-page Fall Style Special, which touts Hilary Duff’s discount duds, then segues into this advice:

Can’t spring for that big designer tote? Help yourself to these hot-label accessories that A-listers adore

They include a $260 Fendi coin purse and a $345 pair of metal and resin (what my people call plastic) Chanel earrings.

6. You’re investing in the future, just not the one you were expecting.

Speaking of Chanel, Us has a two-page spread about the history and production of the 2.55 Chanel bag, so worth it at a cool $2,495. It helpfully lists Chanel’s website so you can order right away. The bag is just large enough to carry your lipstick case, coin purse, eviction notice and tissues to wipe your daughter’s tears when you tell her you can’t afford braces this year.Oh well, maybe snaggle teeth will be in next year. If not, she can always move to England, land of unfortunate orthodontia. You can always pass it down to her. It will hold her dentures quite handily, right next to her broken dreams of a better life.

7. When all else fails, multitask.

Don’t overlook the hidden benefits of your crass materialism. If the amortization of daily usage can’t justify your purchase of a designer Zip-loc with handles, look at that Chanel bag in a new light. Clear some space on your closet rod and those chain straps will make a trendy noose. (Autoerotic asphyxiation not included. Fashion can’t teach us everything.)

More fashion:
Gnashin’ Fashion
3 Uses for September Vogue

Gnashin’ Fashion

September 21, 2009

At Magick Sandwich, we try to keep up with the latest trends. In the aftermath of Fashion Week in New York City, we try to put the pieces together of our blown minds.

As usual, the runways were rife with looks that suggest designers have gone off their meds. One of my favorites for Spring is the Stormtrooper/Fat Albert homage shown in Thom Browne’s men’s collection.

Runway garb is meant to be fanciful. No one really expects anyone to wear that hat in real life (though I would pay to see it). But the most puzzling outfit premiered this past week didn’t appear on the catwalk: It debuted in stores.

Topshop, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a retail chain that sells disposable fashion: that is, trendy, cheap skivvies with delusions of grandeur. Christopher Kane is the latest in a long list of designers and celebrities to team up with the outlet and produce a limited edition clothing line. These clothes are meant to be worn now, in public.

I have to admit, the Crocodile Dress has me throwing up my hands and exclaiming, “I don’t get it!” Then my primitive limbic system takes over and I yank my arms back to my sides to avoid having them bitten off by a prehistoric beast from hell.

Apparently, I’m the only one reacting this way. The line arrived in stores September 18th and was promptly snapped up–that’s pun-speak for sold out–within hours.

Call me crazy, but choosing to depict one’s cooterial region as a cavernous, toothy maw seems counter-intuitive at best. Conjuring the specter of vagina dentata can’t be a good idea. Tickle a guy’s subconscious fear of dismemberment by a fanged birth canal and you just might take the wind out of his sails, permanently. It’s what I would call a Negative Date Outcome.

Perhaps the back of Kane’s next dress could depict the swollen red bottom a baboon presents to her prospective mates. For the sake of young men’s psyches everywhere, I hope Kane’s friends will steer him toward Animal Planet. And away from Shark Week.

Magick Monday Manscaping Tutorial

August 17, 2009

Here at Magick Sandwich, we are committed to the social construct known as pube grooming.

We are proud to see that Gillette supports this cause with its online instructional videos for men. It tells men how to shave their faces, backs and chests. But “How to Shave: Shaving Down There” is our hands-down favorite.

“When there’s no underbrush, the tree looks taller.” Wow. That’s subtle.

Oddly enough, for sheer balls, you’ll have to watch the ad that Schick Quattro for Women is running on televisions across our great nation. Stop over at Bee’s Musings to see the incredible shrinking bushes. I have to say I understand the one cropped to a landing strip and the inverted triangle, but the round and square ones? Kinky. Also, where was the topiary that gets pruned to nothing a la the Sphinx? (That’s completely bare for you laymen out there.)

Schick’s website’s tagline is “Because you never know what might happen between shaves.” Yeah, don’t let that spontaneous standup assignation with a busboy in the restroom at Red Lobster catch you unaware. Pubic stubble? Now that would be embarrassing.

More personal care items:
Fart Filter: Product of the Week
Scrotal Deodorant Wash: Product of the Week

Prelude to a Love Story

August 5, 2009

Tomorrow marks the twenty-first anniversary of my first date with my future husband and the fourteenth anniversary of our wedding. We got married on the seventh anniversary of our first date. Marrieds, all together now: awwww. Singletons, puke at will.

But today holds a special significance for me as well. Twenty-one years ago tonight, I was hanging out with my friend Christine near South Street Seaport, chatting excitedly about my upcoming date. We were in a little seating area in front of a bank on Fulton Street, and there were many other people enjoying the night air around us. Those seats are long gone. The topography of that street has changed many times over.

As was usual in the late 1980s, there were scads of yuppies getting drunk in the open air of the Fulton Fish Market. Two of them stumbled up the street and decided they would pick us up. I suppose we should have felt lucky that they chose us. One of the masters of the universe was red-faced and wavering as if the sidewalk were a balance beam. The other, slightly less soused, did the talking.

Christine and I were not in the mood for this interruption. I’m not sure how the conversation devolved to the point where I invited him to “whip it out,” but it did, and he generously acquiesced. Unfortunately for him, whiskey dick cuts across all social strata. His penis drooped between thumb and forefinger like a sad little mushroom cap.

This was too amusing not to share, so I turned to the others sitting there and said, “Look at this! This guy’s showing us his dick!”

I should mention now that Christine had the kind of throaty, bawdy laugh that made all heads turn. It ground activity to a halt in restaurants, blotted out the dialogue in movie theaters and made people fervently hope they were not the target of her mirth.

So at this particular moment, she let loose with a boomer that echoed off the surrounding buildings. This caused everyone around us to crack up as well. The poor guy had at least a dozen people laughing at his diminutive manhood. Wisely, he put it away.

At this point, I advised him that it wasn’t so bad because I was sure he wouldn’t remember any of this the next day at his cushy Wall Street job. He replied, “I’ll make a thousand dollars tomorrow.”

And then I uttered one of the best lines I have ever said: “Oh, yeah? A thousand dollars a day won’t make your penis bigger.”

Needless to say, the gentleman was none too pleased with my statement. He looked for a moment like he would lunge at me. I was trying to gauge his drunkenness. I knew I could easily knock down his friend, who continued to sway, smiling dumbly, apparently thinking things were going well.

Instead, the guy called me a f**king c**t. I find it thrilling to be called that. When a man (or woman) unleashes that word, I know I have hit my mark. My grin must have caught him off guard. After a little more salty language, he lurched away, pulling his friend by the arm. Neither one spilled a drop of the beer in their plastic to-go cups. A few minutes later, a cop walked by, too late to witness the tableau, too late for me to press charges. While carrying an open container of alcohol and flashing is illegal, being a bitch is not. I love this country.

Years later, I related this all to my mother-in-law, finishing with “…and that’s the last penis I saw before your son’s.” She laughed. True story.

A Peeve

August 4, 2009

Facial tissue that smells bad: Why?

The manufacturer has to have some idea that you’re going to be using it under your nose.

Why not make sure it smells okay? How hard can that be?

Laws of Selection?

July 24, 2009

You’ll often find at least two women surveying this aisle, unable to find their preferred kind. It’s like a menstrual IQ test. Some use game theory, teaming up to locate each other’s style, be it thick, thin, long, winged, scented or singly wrapped.

A product this personal inspires brand loyalty, but are all these permutations necessary? Can individual requirements be that different? I hope it goes without saying that you should not send your man on this errand. That constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, without a doubt.

Can’t Make this Stuff Up: Death Row Edition

July 22, 2009

A death row inmate in Texas wants to donate his body to an artist who will turn it into fish food. Then people will be able to feed him to goldfish in an aquarium set up in an art gallery.

Gene Hathorn killed his own family. Marco Evaristti, the artist, once hosted a dinner party and served meatballs in sauce he made from his own liposuctioned fat.

Is it wrong that I think these guys sound pretty interesting? In fact, I’m feeling so inspired, I’m going to invite my friends over right now. I’ve got some art in my toilet I want them to see.

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