I don't get fashion

"You look like two goats," Dona tells Miranda and me when we come out of the gym in sloppy clothes, lugging gym bags, hair dripping. That's exactly what we looked like Wednesday  as we set out from pilates to a fashion show. Miranda didn't even have on eye-makeup. It was scandalous. 

We tried to slip into the shadows on the lawn of the State Museum where the show was set up -- but when the guard came over to chase us out of the flower bed our cover got kind of destroyed. We felt conspicuous -- though we were hardly so glitzy as the woman in the first row in a sleeveless, backless, knit mini dress, giant fake breasts, two-inch long plastic eyelashes and lipstick that consisted of a black kiss mark in the center of her mouth. Stars can pull off outlandish looks. And she was Hana, known as the bosanka Paris Hilton because like Paris she was cast in a show as a shallow sophisticate living on a farm in a stupid reality show. Anyway she was in the first row and further back was a man in blue glasses and a Mickey Mouse T-Shirt and further back was this most amazing couple. She had hair of straw from over dying and a skirt that ended at her quadriceps muscle and about 6 pounds of gold jewelry while he had hair so slicked back and greased up you were afraid to touch it. They were in each other's laps and rubbing body parts through the show. 

With all this activity in the audience it was hard to pay attention to the show. One while collection seemed to consist of barefooted women dragging rag dolls with both women and dolls dressed in burlap sacks and swimming caps in garish colors.  The women were all uniformly skinny and willing to wear their hair in outlandish strands and puffs. But there was one moment in the showing of the first collection when a young man with thick black hair came out in a open front knit sweater when all chattering stopped and you could hear the intake of breath.  Maybe I could get into fashion after all, I thought.

Because we were in the shadows we did not have seats and this show lasted nearly two hours. In the middle of it rain began falling, but that didn't slow things. Organizers handed out umbrellas to the audience.

As it finally closed down and we left, we were amused to see that audience members were carrying new umbrellas out with them. Miranda was disgusted. "Only in Bosnia," she muttered. I don't know. I've seen an awful lot of Americans tucking buffet items into their purses and taking motel towels and ashtrays. Same idea. And I'd far father have a nice umbrella than one of those sack dresses as a souvenir.