Fashion Tumbleweeds

Today is my eighth Friday in the fashion world!

In fashion years, that's an eternity, I'm sure.

But I still not used to "Fashion Fridays." For those of you in other industries, let me explain.

They start at the very humane hour of 9 a.m. with a fancy coffee drink and end a few hours later with wine on someone's veranda overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

When I was a reporter, I remember other kinds of Fridays. Long, long ones when it got so late I stopped caring about my dental hygiene and we considered getting "fourth meal."

But on my second day at Zazou, Olivia (an extremely polite and efficient colleague who has red and purple hair and a surprising penchant for the F-word) informed me "we're allergic to Fridays." Wink, wink.

That means people leave around 3.

I could tell immediately that Olivia doesn't lie and sticks to rules, so I believed her when she said this was acceptable employee behavior. More on Olivia later - but here's a picture of her at least.

I know this is a bad picture, but note I had to hide behind my monitor and take it quickly while she was on the phone. Olivia is camera-shy and I have a feeling she'd deck me if she had a mind to.

It's kind of exciting.

So on Fridays, everyone disappears.

[Insert whistling wind sound effect here.]

Now, at first this idea really excited me. EVERY FRIDAY, MINIMUM DAY.

I imagined myself gliding out of the office into one of my friends' convertibles, waiting outside to squire me off to a $15 cocktail.

This is supposed to be me and my equally fabulous friend - but imagine us less attractive and thus more likeable. I also don't believe I have a friend with a convertible.

Anyway, my point.

My point is with an early release time comes a lot of pressure. You see my boss - that would be Claudia - remember her from the last post?

Well, this is actually one of the models we used in our Spring catalog, working our Polynesia Scarf (wholesales $10, retails $20 - hint, hint.) Isn't she pretty? I like that open-mouth thing models do.

I look like this when I try to do it.

The point... Yes, the point. So, Claudia - even though she is a fabulous fashiony boss who takes me out to drinks and sushi and NEVER LETS ME PAY, that's right, does - in fact - expect me to do some real work.

Once Friday comes, I begin to panic about my to-do list. Today, for example, is Friday and when 2:30 came around, I knew what I had to do.

Blog about Fashion Fridays.

And for the record, it's 3:38 and I'm the only one here.

Fashion Earthquake

This is going to be a blog about my new job in fashion.

I'm not really sure how to start, so here's a story.

This is me on my birthday last year. I'm smiling because you can't see the gravy on the bottom of my brand new, orange tunic with princess sleeves and ribbon accent.

The gravy was brown without princess sleeves.

This sort of my life with fashion.

See, I used to be a journalist and - and even though I've always loved clothes - the bar was set pretty low. When you're a writer, people forgive your appearance. I had false confidence. Plus, I was surrounded by folks more concerned with deadlines than hemlines.

I knew an editor who had "fancy jeans," for example.

Yup.

But now, I find myself actually working in the fashion industry. For a company called Zazou. We're in Berkeley, California - which is kind of like Los Angeles but with more hippies and less prostitutes.

These are my bosses - Chris and Claudia.

More on them later.

Anyway, here I am arriving to work every day in this fashiony office instead of a beige newsroom. I think I used to look better against a beige background because I wasn't competing with anything.

The point is I'm realizing I'm kind of a fashion disaster. Well, not really a disaster but more like a fashion earthquake. In that sometimes I'm smooth even though bad things are happening under the surface. (See birthday picture.)

But then I explode! With a horrible fashion decision.

This is my "I Put the R in Rad" T-shirt. I bought it at Old Navy about five years ago and wear it constantly.

Juxtapose this sensibility against:

Fabulous scarves!

Beautiful Bags!

Gorgeous Gloves!

(Aren't the fingerless gloves cool? All right - shameless plug - but you can buy these at http://www.zazou.com/. They also come in animal prints. Rrrrrr.)

Not a rad in sight. Or gravy stain.

Can a girl like me survive the fashion world? Stay tuned.