An outfit that makes a statement:

A "Don't" Is A Delicious Invitation To Do

And When I Do It? I Take It There.

My Partner-In-Crime In Jared Gold's "Crimes Of Fashion"

~

One of the reasons I love Jared's custom creations?

I have no fear of ending up on Us Weekly
or any other tabloid’s “Worst Dressed List.”

In fact, being dissed by their middle-American “Keep It Mild” mindset,
I’d consider it a compliment. I mean, let’s face it:
some of the couture I rock is both as delicate in its decadence
as much as it's ornamental in its Fuck-You.
Said another way? I’d rather risk hisses or boos than be beige and blasé.


But before I could be "anything" or take "it" anywhere,
I had to help make it. As usual, Mr. Gold was over-worked
and under-staffed.

A celebrity model and her "handler"
(one of the best ones I've encountered, actually)
had arrived.


Full disclosure:

The Czarina show at Union Station was the most full-blown affair in his career to date. The month leading up to it has been a cyclone: and for once in my life, I'm utilizing a little term called 'understatement.'

That's why for the first time in the 7-plus years we've been friends
when my regalia wasn't complete,
I didn't have a coronary.

I did, however, turn into a bit of a "bossy bottom" with Jordan,
his right hand man.


And uh, when the clock is ticking and
other fittings require his dynamite stitching skills?


(...Not to mention anyone else within spitting distance.
Thank you, Aja!)

I'd been given word some of my favorite people had already arrived,


The models had begun getting fittings,



While other "walking sticks"
(and I say that with fondest affections)
were getting their faces beat


and their hair done


And before I knew it, I'd been whisked through the process myself
And I was out among the most fashion-forward crowd in Los Angeles
Gettin' my "CLINTerviewing" on.


(as in Lecaro, whose articles have run everywhere from the L.A. Weekly
to Paper magazine)


(who's getting the last laugh, actually:
captured mid-chuckle, I'm the one who's looking at this now and thinking
"Damn, is it this ever an unflattering shot!")

Then, whoosh—
Next thing I know, I'm weaving around the mannequins back-stage


in their various stages from 'incubation' to sensation


Yet I'm being told in a brusque voice by one of the Fire Marshall's Reps
to get on the stage

and announce

the show's about to begin?


Uh, that'd be me.

See how the audience members' heads are craned
in my direction?

Whelp, they were listening to something—
though I honestly can't tell you much of what...

The words making their way through the movement of my Iips
were disparate from what that "little voice" inside my noggin'
was screaming at an ambulatory pitch:

A grand total of four girls are fully prepped and ready.
It's gonna take a miracle to pull this one off.

Then I wobble on uneasy knees
down the steps,
whisk past the hair and make-up team
who have revved it to a break-neck speed

and crouch among the audience, thinking
Thank God that runway's goin' for "Great Wall of China"
'cause not one second more can be bought.








And remind me what I've known all along:

Take a miracle?

This man makes his miracles—

We just happened to catch a glimpse of one.


Wave the flags; ignite the fireworks
It's a triumph, my friend

I exhale, go heavy on the "helloing"

And have to admit, for a hot minute there
I feel goosebumps pushing their way
through layers of my epidermis

As I realize: this is a moment in history
and it's happening

it's all happening

in the here and the now.