“Maybe we should have gone to Bendel’s to look for dresses instead of here,” Serena mused, fingering the buttons on one of the suits.
Nah, their dressing rooms aren’t nearly as big.
See b die and go to heaven
Why Blair had never been inside the Madison Avenue Oscar de la Renta boutique before was beyond her. The boutique was modeled after Mr. de la Renta’s home in the Dominican Republic, with imported Dominican coral stone walls, plaster palm trees, and a shoe display set up like a catwalk. The eveningwear was hung in a special lounge furnished with love seats from de la Renta’s furniture collection. Too bad Blair wasn’t in the market for a black tulle ball gown or she would have tackled Marcus and pulled him down on one of the toile love seats just to thank him for taking her there.
“Hello, Marthe,” Marcus greeted the amazingly beautiful, Amazon-like, Latina saleswoman. She was wearing a gold pouf skirt and a tight, hot pink short-sleeved sweater that were simultaneously fifties retro and ultramodern.
At first Blair’s hackles rose and she started to bare her fangs, but then she quickly realized that being jealous of anyone that impossibly tall, curvy, and gorgeous would be a total waste of time.
“Miss Waldorf is looking for a gown in white,” Marcus explained, putting his arm around Blair and totally erasing any jealous or irrational thoughts she’d ever had, or ever would have.
Wow, he is good.
Marthe nodded seriously and led them to a rack of white goddess gowns that would have looked stunning on Marthe, but that Blair already knew would make her look like a fat runt with no real cleavage to speak of. She was about to protest, but Marcus—bless him—had already figured it out.
“What about one of those suits?” he asked, walking over to finger an exquisite pleated white satin skirt. The skirt was paired with a fitted white satin jacket that sported the most perfect white leather belt around the waist, fastened with a nifty white leather bow.
“You have the perfect figure for his suits,” Marthe declared in a wonderful, thick accent. She strode over to the rack and selected three of the suits for Blair to try on. “And you are a size four, I am sure.”
“Maybe she is even a size two,” a sonorous male voice chimed in from behind them.
Blair whirled around, her heart already aflutter at being mistaken for a size two, and nearly choked on her own saliva when she saw who it was. Standing just a few feet away from her was Oscar de la Renta himself, wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit, a starched white shirt, and a pink tie, his handsome bald head looking like it had been oiled with olive oil, his gray-black eyebrows smoldering. Blair had seen him hundreds of times in the pages of fashion magazines and in the society columns but never in person. And for an old man, he was supremely sexy.
“Ah, Mr. de la Renta,” Marthe greeted her boss with a warm smile. “Miss Waldorf will wear your suits well, no?”
Mr. de la Renta looked Blair up and down and then flashed her an appreciative smile. “Very well,” he agreed. He turned to Marcus. “I missed your mother in Milan.”
“Hello, Uncle Oscar.” Marcus smiled broadly, stepped forward, and embraced the designer, hugging him affectionately. Blair nearly threw up all over the beautiful floor.
Uncle Oscar!?
Marcus chuckled and then touched her arm. “He’s not really my uncle, but he may as well be. My mother won’t wear anything but the clothes Uncle Oscar makes for her.”
Who could blame her?
For once, Blair was speechless. She felt exactly like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when she wakes up after the Kansas cyclone and finds herself in Munchkinland, confronted by Glinda, the beautiful, good witch. Except that Blair wasn’t nearly as fat as Judy Garland. She was a size two!
“This way, Miss Waldorf,” Marthe instructed, leading the way to a large jade green–curtained dressing room. She hung up four suits on the hooks inside—two in size four and two in size two.
“Don’t worry, I’ll fit her, Marthe,” Mr. de la Renta called after them. “Let me just find my measuring tape.”
Blair was convinced she was dreaming, so whatever Mr. de la Renta said was fine with her. Marthe helped her into a size two skirt, which fit her like a dream, but as soon as she slipped her arms into the sleeves of the size two jacket, it was clear that the shoulders were going to be too tight. Marthe swapped it for the four, fastened the bow on the narrow leather belt, and then threw open the curtain.
Ta-da!
Blair put her hands on her hips and strutted out of the dressing room like a runway model, swishing the pleated skirt from side to side, a huge grin plastered to her face. Why hadn’t she thought of wearing a suit like this before? Not that there were many suits like this one. It was elegant and tarty at the same time—totally chic, but most of all, unique.
“Blimey,” Marcus breathed. “You’re stunning.”
And so are you! Blair almost blurted out. Not only was Lord Marcus breathtakingly handsome and royal, he was bosom buddies with the most amazing fashion designer in the universe.
Mr. de la Renta frowned and shook out his measuring tape. “The waist is all wrong,” he fretted, tugging on Blair’s jacket. “And the bodice is too high.” He undid the belt and unfastened the buttons on the jacket, yanking it roughly away from Blair’s arms. “You may keep the skirt, darling. But please, may I make you a jacket that fits?”
May he?
Blair wished Serena or one of her other classmates would walk by and see her standing in the middle of the Oscar de la Renta boutique wearing only her shell pink La Perla bra and one of “Uncle Oscar’s” gorgeous pleated skirts, getting fitted for her graduation outfit by Oscar de la Renta himself. She glanced at Marcus, who grinned back at her and then silently placed his right hand over his heart, his emerald green eyes shining with adoration.
Whoa.
Blair had to force herself not to pee in her pants. She was so happy, she wasn’t sure if she could stand it.
“Hold still,” Mr. de la Renta instructed as he lifted her arms and slipped his measuring tape around her 34Bs. Maybe it was the fact that she was surrounded by beautiful men and beautiful clothes, but Blair had the most ridiculous urge to lick his shiny, sexy, bald head. She giggled, wobbling a little in her bare feet as he slid the measuring tape down to measure her hips. “Hold still!”
She squeezed her eyes shut and did her best not to move, truly believing that when she opened them again, she’d find she’d died and gone to heaven.
Gossipgirl.net
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
Open call
In case you haven’t heard, that weirdo indie film director Ken Mogul has realized no one is ever going to pay much attention to him until he makes a big blockbuster movie, and so he is making one. He’s also on a mission to discover the next hot young actress, so he’s having an open call for his new feature film, Breakfast at Fred’s, at the restaurant of the same name in Barneys this Saturday. The movie is a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany’s with an entirely teenage cast. Guess who’s going to be first in line to try out? And guess who absolutely cannot act?
But guess who can??!
Hmmm … will they choose the girl who definitely knows how to make herself look the part but has no talent, or the girl with talent who doesn’t look anything like Audrey Hepburn? Sounds like one of those vacuous catchphrases from America’s Next Top Model, my all-time favorite love-to-hate-it show.
Prestigious boarding school to expand art curriculum
Aren’t I just full of all the latest news? Anyhoo, in case anyone’s interested, Waverly Prep, a prestigious boarding school in the upper Hudson Valley, is looking for budding young Picassos and Monets. They’re expecting a rush of artsy new applicants this fall, but we know of one particular still-schoolless soon-to-be-sophomore who simply can’t wait that long. (You don’t really want to go to public schoo
l, do you, J?)
Celebrity body doubles
Britney’s got one. Leonardo’s got one. And even some of the regulars on New York’s society circuit have them. Apparently fashion designer Oscar de la Renta is so much in demand at parties all over the world that he sends his clones to the parties he doesn’t care to attend, and to his Madison Avenue boutique to keep the staff on their toes. His body doubles are all relatives of his from the Dominican Republic, and some of them even have his name, so it really isn’t a stretch for them to impersonate their famous cousin. Now, if I could just get myself a body double to attend my final exams so I could concentrate on resting up for the parties after graduation!
St. jude’s lax coach investigating viagra theft
This warning came in the form of an e-mail, and caught me quite off guard:
Dear Gossip Girl,
Please let your readers know stealing is a serious matter. Whoever took my prescription for Viagra—and I’m pretty sure it was a senior on my lax team—will not graduate! Thank you for your help.
michaels
Any advice on how I should respond?
Sightings
S and B, both with huge shopping bags, walking out of Bergdorf Goodman and the Oscar de la Renta boutique, respectively. Guess they got lucky and found the graduation dresses of their dreams! An unshaven and more-neurotic-than-usual-looking D buying a collection of Pablo Neruda love poems at B&N. Has he gone over the edge this time? Wait, what am I talking about—he always goes over the edge. V in the CVS in downtown Williamsburg, loading up on Jergens antibacterial shower gel. All those prehookup and posthookup showers—gotta be prepared. J, with her brother, in the bookstore, reading The Best Public Schools in NYC. Has she given up on boarding school already? Hey, J—see above. You’d be surprised what can happen in the last few weeks of school. Kids going wild, getting kicked out right and left. You just gotta have faith. It’s like that song from West Side Story: “There’s a place for us! …”
I’ll stop singing now and pretend to study for my finals.
See you at the open call at Barneys on Saturday morning—who won’t be there?
You know you love me.
gossip girl
Objects reflected in mirror are closer than they appear
“Is this too brown?” Jenny Humphrey asked her sometimes-best friend, Elise Wells. She flicked a tiny Sephora makeup brush over the ridge of her adorable button nose a few times. “I’m trying to reduce the size of my nose.”
Like there isn’t another part of her body that actually needs reducing?
“What nose?” Elise demanded. “You barely even have a nose.” Elise had a small nose too, but it was pugged, which was almost worse than having a big honker, because she was tall and was forever concerned that people were staring up at her nose hairs and boogers.
Nose hairs and boogers, oh my!
It was last-period study hall, and Jenny had taken over the kindergarten bathroom, which was always free in the afternoons because the kindergartners went home at two. The stalls were narrower than those in the rest of the bathrooms in the school, and the toilets were only eighteen inches off the ground, with bright pink Hello Kitty toilet seats. Even the sinks were lower, with pink plastic Hello Kitty step stools in front of them and clear pink Hello Kitty soap dispensers. All the Hello Kitty paraphernalia had been donated by a parent from Tokyo who happened to own Hello Kitty.
“Have you ever heard of a school called Waverly Prep?” Jenny asked, blotting wine-colored blush onto her lips and then smearing them with Vaseline—another tip she’d learned on TV from some model/actress named Lauren Hutton who was the same age as her dad but was still pretty enough to model for J.Crew.
Elise shook her head. “Is it another boarding school?” She never said it out loud, but Elise hated the idea of Jenny going off to boarding school and leaving her friendless and alone in Constance’s tenth grade. Who else would order takeout egg rolls with her and have them delivered right to the blue doors? Who else would tell her—gently—that her shirt would look better untucked?
“Well, I just heard they have this great new art program. Like, they have a real gallery that’s open to the public and the students curate the shows and everything. It sounds really cool. Of course, applications were due in, like, December, but I was thinking maybe I could send them some of my artwork…” Jenny zipped up her yellow-and-pink striped LeSportsac makeup bag, watching herself in one of the diminutive, square over-the-sink mirrors as she talked. Lauren Hutton was right. Her nose did look smaller. If only her dark hair weren’t so darned curly and unmanageable. “This is my last chance. If I don’t get in there, I’m going to have to go to public school.”
Heaven forbid!
“I just wish I hadn’t burned all those paintings…” she added wistfully and rubbed her lips together one last time.
Back when she’d been in love with Nate, Jenny had painted his portrait in the style of each of her favorite painters: Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Monet, Warhol, Pollock. The paintings had been vivid and full of emotion, as if she’d been trying to invoke love itself right there on the canvas. But when Nate had broken her heart, she’d set fire to them in a metal trash can out on the sidewalk in front of her building, burning every last one.
Elise bared her teeth at the mirror, trying to dig out the remains of the orange she’d eaten for lunch with her jagged, unpainted pinky nail. “Yeah, but would you really want to send a boarding school a whole bunch of paintings of some boy you don’t even talk to anymore?” she asked reasonably.
Well, at least they’d know I was capable of having a boyfriend, Jenny retorted silently, suddenly irked by the prep-piness of Elise’s shell pink Peter Pan-collared blouse and the way her breath always smelled like yesterday’s egg rolls.
Besides, Waverly sounded like the kind of school that was always evolving; not a party school per se, but a school that wasn’t afraid to try something new or take a risk on someone.
Like her, for instance?
Elise stopped picking her teeth and reached for Jenny’s makeup bag, opening it without asking permission and unscrewing a tube of shimmering lilac-colored Stila lip gloss. She puckered her wide mouth and began generously smearing lip gloss all over it.
When Jenny really thought about it, she had taken a risk on Elise. First she had been friendless, and now she had a friend, whether she liked it or not.
“You’re right,” she mused, retrieving her makeup bag and spilling it into one of the small, low sinks. “I should send Waverly something new anyway. Something I haven’t tried before.” She sorted through the assortment of eyeliners, shadows, and glosses, looking for her favorite Clinique four-shades-of-gray eye shadow palette in its mint green plastic case. “Would you mind if I painted your portrait with this?” she asked her friend, holding up the palette and feeling suddenly inspired. She’d do Elise in eye shadow, her dad in red wine, and Dan in … instant coffee. It was innovative and meaningful, and way better than sending Waverly a tear sheet of her jog bra modeling debut or her first appearance on Page Six.
Not that Jenny wasn’t still a party girl looking for a party school, but Serena van der Woodsen had taught her a very important lesson: Party girls are deeper and smarter than they first appear.
Be still her cheating heart
Vanessa was sitting on the floor in her living room wearing only the black SUGARDADDY DID HUNGARY T-shirt her sister, Ruby, had sent her from Budapest, a recent stop on her band’s tour, and a pair of somebody’s gray-and-white striped boxers—it was getting hard to keep them straight. She was trying to smoothly splice together Chuck Bass’s horrifying and amusing interview, complete with pet snow monkey, with Kati and Isabel talking about how they’d decided to go to Rollins College in Florida together even though Isabel had gotten into Princeton. Chuck was wearing a tight white wifebeater T-shirt and was rubbing his beefy, unnaturally tan arms with Bain de Soleil dark tanning oil as he explained how he stayed golden brown all year. His monke
y remained curled in his lap, blinking stupidly at the camera with its creepy light blue eyes.
“Normally I lie in the beds like once, maybe twice a week, or I use this amazing Estée Lauder bronzing stuff to keep it nice and even all year round. I wonder, though—do you happen to know if there’s a good tanning salon near Fort Lee?”
Isabel and Kati were lying on their backs with their heads pressed together—Isabel’s sleek and dark and Kati’s frizzy and strawberry blond—smiling up at the camera like sisters who looked nothing alike.
“It’s like, how am I going to concentrate in, like, Intro to Law at Princeton, if my best friend in the whole world is down in Florida all by herself?” Isabel demanded gaily, her lips so thoroughly glossed, they were practically dripping.
“Besides, we’re both going to lose ten pounds this summer on the South Beach Diet so we can look awesome in our matching Shoshanna black-and-red paisley bikinis, which we get to wear every single day!” Kati shrieked excitedly, kicking her bare legs so hard, her light-blue-and-white seersucker uniform flipped up, revealing her sensible white cotton Gap underwear.
The crazy thing was that the more Vanessa replayed the interviews, the more she realized she was actually going to miss these people, freak shows that they were, and she wondered for their sake if there was any way to make them sound more intelligent and less insane.
Probably not. And what would be the fun of that anyway?
As she worked, she couldn’t help feeling distracted by the knowledge that just over the Williamsburg Bridge, the indie film director Ken Mogul was casting his first moneymaking blockbuster venture, Breakfast at Fred’s, which would be filmed at Fred’s restaurant in Barneys department store on Sixtieth and Madison. Months before, Ken Mogul had spotted a piece of Vanessa’s film footage that had accidentally been leaked on the Internet and tried to hire her to work with him. He’d wanted her to quit school and postpone college. Of course, Vanessa had said no. But now Ken Mogul was in New York, making a movie right under her nose. She was supposed to be driving around the country with Aaron this summer anyway, but…
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