We arrived in Montana-Crans yesterday for a few sunny days with family.
Today is gorgeous, though the once gorgeous snow rushes down in
sun-sparkled rivulets.
Of course one of the first things I do on my morning off, because I
don’t do downhill skiing anymore, is shop-drifting through elegant streets
looking at elegant clothes with and without name brands, and wondering who could
use that Desigual T –shirt with printed charcoal-drawing kids and color
swatches, or the soberly elegant Gant shirt that whispers ‘I’m way casual but guess
how much you’d have to pay for me?’
Tourist boutiques are filled with ugly cows leering from linen
towels (made in China?), 200 Swiss franc kiddie Moonboot knock-offs (idem), fur
jackets for many thousands, and the surfboarder’s dream jacket for 800, on sale
from its original 1,200 francs, not counting matching trousers and the silk shirt
on your back.
As if you cared enough to turn a tag around and take a look (with
discretion), and you do and the price is….oh no, don’t tell me…..
Ah yes, pre-scuffed boots are in vogue, though they look even more tired than they did last July: you know, boots
that have lived, boots with a history, for heaven’s sake Eloise.
What I would call Let’s Look @ My Vintage, old hippie knock-arounds….hey, peace and love……I’m wearing boots that waded through monsoon and
mud-slides in Bangladesh when I was a stringer for Bareback Outback…..when
in fact the wearer is the daughter of a Valaisan banker….
Meanwhile of course this materialist loitering transports me to the land of Glamor and the Unnecessary Accessory, far
away from news of the tragic death, following a series of brutal rapes, of a young woman in Ambedkar Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.
And the terrible events in Syria.
And my conflicting views on Israeli policy and policies, while loving Israel.
I can look at the fur of a wild animal killed for fashion, and feel the guilty pleasure of running my fingers through it, and the (supposed) moral
superiority of someone who wouldn’t buy fur even if she could afford it.
Animals suffer at the hands of people, people suffer at the hands
of people, and I am distracted by fur and fashion, the color and flow of
textiles that are this year’s answer to what was happening last year.
We’ll see if 2013 will see its share of camouflage prints to honor
Syria and perhaps as a tribute to repression, the rise of the hijab as the dernier cri in fashion.
