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| A passion for fashion? Well, perfect for Saint Patrick's Day, at least. |
Yesterday, TPC discussed THE BLING RING, the true story of a gang of teens who broke into the mansions of movie stars to steal expensive shoes worth at least $600 a pair. Jewelry too, TPC should add, except it better have been in a robin's egg-blue box from Tiffany's. Today TPC segues into the documentary, SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF'S, a celluloid paean to conspicuous consumption at a luxury department store in New York City. The flip side of THE BLING RING, if you will.
Bergdorf's is actually two buildings in Manhattan, straddling 5th Avenue, and is where one can buy--rather than steal--those Christian Louboutin heels. Their $600 price gets sniffed at by some supervisors who rhapsodize instead over pairs with $6000 stickers and bemoan, "We can't keep them in stock."
Now that some of the patrons are dead, the store's employees dish about the time Elizabeth Taylor waltzed in and ordered 200 pairs of white mink earmuffs to give as gifts or when John and Yoko plunked down $400,000 for eighty fur coats to hand out as Christmas presents. Sort of the height of hypocrisy, don't you think, since Lennon once wrote:
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed and hunger, a brotherhood of man.
TPC is certain that the consumers who throw away money at Bergdorf's gladly pay $2500 apiece to attend a charity ball
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| A 2012 holiday window: "Deck the halls with Bergdorf's follies." |
and also likely give ten percent of their income to a cause. And why not? This kind of spending is sponsored by the tax code, is deductible, and gives faceless millionaires relevance and provides them with cocktail chatter for months as they recount a brief chat with a Joan Collins or a January Jones, who--unknown to them--were paid to appear and act interested in whatever small talk come their way.
That's not enough for TPC who notes that there are more than a billion adults on this planet who earn less than two dollars a day and that six grand for two gaudy shoes would feed a thousand hungry children for a week. On the other hand, I guess, capitalism makes everyone prosperous. Well, at least, a few.
But, you say, nobody forced the movie creators to make this shock doc that portrays excess. Would it surprise you to learn that the film was financed by one of the founder's millionaire descendants? So the ticket you buy entitles you to sit through a 93-minute infomercial, punctuated with the braying of Joan Rivers and Susan Lucci. Bamboo shoots under the fingernails is a more pleasant way to spend an evening and please send the $11 you save to a children's charity of your choice.
Of course, that was our gal Lindsay Lohan aka LiLo in yesterday's trivia pictorial. From a recent court case, but which one, who knows? So many. Today, yes, that's Michael Caine on the left, but who's the fellow playing Watson?