It's All Greek to Them

London Fashion Week is the bastard stepchild of a month that also includes New York, Milan and Paris. But because London is often the breeding ground for young talent (that then goes on to show their clothes elsewhere), fights still break out at the doors to fashion designers no one but the fash pack has ever heard of.

Today it was Christopher Kane, who’s funded by Donatella (she’s-a-fella, I always want to call her) Versace. (Admit it, she looks like one, doesn’t she?) I watched open-mouthed as the ice queen facades of some 50 fashionistas melted as they yelled at the doormen (and women): “Don’t you know who I am?”

Well, if they had to ask…

A Greek friend of a friend solved her lack of invitation problem with one of the best door coups I’ve seen since I was 19, and managed to get myself laughed into a notoriously strict bar in Collegetown by handing the bouncer an ID for a 250-lb-plus African American man. She announced the (Greek) title of her publication in a tone that shrieked: “How could you be so uncool as to not have heard of my magazine?”

Inside, she had a good laugh. The translation of her magazine title: Best Grills.

As in barbecues. “You know, skewers, shish kebabs,” she said.

I wonder if I could pull that off next time, but instead using “F—k you” as the title? In Greek, of course.

* * *

Another two pounds down, for a total of 23 pounds. I’m trying not to obsess about my plodding progress, but the fact that I’m writing about it means, of course, that I am.

I read a statistic somewhere that it takes approximately eight years to recover from binge eating, and I can’t help thinking I have more than done my part to push up the average. This morning I thought back to 1993, when I started a low fat diet with help from my roommate (who was studying nutrition) and went on to lose 50 plus pounds. I can remember about four months in, when she told me that I could start adding in foods that I loved – “like you have a piece of apple pie instead of your sandwich,” I can still hear her saying. (Before I’d started the diet she’d had me make a list of foods I loved, which were all off limits.)

I said OK, but I didn’t actually ever try it. I wanted to keep losing weight, and I feared the loss of control. I started the diet on – don’t ask me how I remember this – Feb. 11, 1993. When I returned home for the summer I managed to maintain on a bizarre diet of bagels, frozen yogurt, and diet Coke. But by September, I was bingeing. By October, nothing fit. That’s how every diet I’ve ever done has ended – not with a whimper but with a bang.

This time has to be different. Please let it be different.