Dear Editor,
My extended family seems to be feeling the pinch this holiday season. They have all voted to scotch the expensive gift-giving this Christmas, and just give each other time.
Tell that to 1% America though. They have had a banner couple of years. A couple of notable indicators of their successes can be ascertained from public reports of big city gala events and advertisements in very selective media. Two of these caught my eye in recent months.
At this year’s Met Gala in New York in September, philanthropists, designers and celebrities showed off their popularity and quite excessive charmery.
In attendance that night were gowns and suits by the likes of Rodarte, Balenciga, Versace, Givenchy, Carolina Herrera, Collina Strada, Chanel, Oscar de La Renta, Zac Posen, Valentino, Iris van Herpen, Vera Wang. And oh, yes, the list goes on quite a bit longer. Each piece of cloth peacocked that night likely set its owner or renter back thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a one-time wear.
However, it is not enough to just wear the wealth of nations for one’s gown. A proper robber baron celebrity must have additional bling for additional places on the body. Where the 1% might shop for that extra extravagance was suggested one awful day by the humongous fold-out insert in the New York Times for Van Cleef and Arpels Haute Joillerie.
For those of us who live a simpler existence, this is a fabulously extravagant French jewelry company where one can find seas of sparkling diamonds in exotic pieces of one-of-a-kind ear, neck, and wrist fashionwear, each of which can cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars and therefore feed large groups of poor city folk for months, I’m guessing.
There it is, my darlings. Now, get on down to the local food bank and keep your mouths shut.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
