It's In The Bag

The Mesdames' recent forays to a Tinseltown charity bash and countless Holiday parties have brought them to this: an immediate handbag intervention. While stylists ensure that stars are appropriately dressed for festive occasions, the Mesdames are here for everyone else. They are here because they care. They can't stand to see you hurt yourselves any more. Dahlings - please STOP carrying day bags in the evening!

If Madame Shock had a penny for every time she has seen a beautifully dressed woman out on the town schlepping a huge, leather, daytime handbag she would have a house with a much better view in St. Tropez. It pains her even more than Uggs with Everything.

Many women seem to assume that if the logo is large and expensive enough, the bag can be taken anywhere. No. Non. Nyet. Nein. Even if your alligator Birkin is so large and expensive it can fit your hair stylist and your accountant...the answer is still no. This is simply one (of the many) time(s) when an expensive label truly won't save you: large brown leather Louis Vuitton satchels will never go with evening dresses.

Madame Shock actually finds this one of the most perplexing issues since Eve risked it all for an apple (Tiramisu, maybe. Creme brulee, certainly. But an apple?! Mon Dieu!). What woman in her right mind does not want to buy more purses? Especially dainty, beaded, sparkly, amusing ones?

Evening purses do not even need to be expensive - costume jewelry and evening purses are surely the arenas in which imagination and style can push you into the Best-Dressed list for under $50. And like costume jewelry, a dainty, delightful clutch or minaudiere can be stashed in your large, practical, leather day bag to whip out like Superman's costume in a phone booth and transform yourself into something extraordinary.

The key here (as with everything) is creativity and presentation. Below is merely a hint at the wealth of possibilities:

• A woman of Madame's acquaintance got lots of Society-Page coverage while carrying a McDonalds Happy Meal box she had enhanced with color-coordinated craft-store crystals.
• If that's a little too calculated for your taste (and Madame Chic agrees), vintage and low-priced-basics stores have sassy clutches by the dozen.
• Antique stores have vintage lunch boxes, purses, cigar boxes, and even authentic Victorian high-heeled shoes (to be carried by the laces, of course).
• Madame Shock still swoons over a very magnetic woman at a nightclub in London recently who carried a child's rubber rain boot shaped like a ladybug (with convenient handle-shaped straps) that so cheekily complimented a sinuous red Versace dress...
• Art stores have all manner of little boxes and bags that can be customized to your liking (Madame found a grand stash of $3 brightly-colored, satin-covered, take-out boxes a few years ago that made divine evening bags).
• Two words: hardware store. Vraiment? Oui. Many hardware stores have absolutely charming, miniature "trash cans" complete with lids and handles - perfect for painting, embellishing, bedazzling, or simply carrying au naturel. (This is one of the very few occasions when the Mesdames endorse the Bedazzler...)
• Every mid-range store - from Ann Taylor to Banana Republic to JCrew to Topshop - has gazillions of festive bags during the holiday season.
• The classic route (favored by Madame Chic, bien sur), is to go to a top-rate store and, if you can afford Neiman Marcus for every accessory, they can encase your evening necessities in an array of amazing, blingy options.
• If you want a true original but can't be bothered to do it yourself, you are already acquainted with the amazing artists on Etsy. If not...how have you survived?
• In a financial pinch, girls with moxie can simply carry a gorgeous little gift bag (cute ones can be had at the Dollar Tree for a Washington). Not only have you spent less than a diet soda, but you've made everyone wonder if they just weren't cool enough to be invited to the swag suite.

There are at least as many evening-purse ideas as there are sleazy men in Wall Street bars. With fancy purses you can do no wrong as long as they're: small, bright, and memorable (you might apply different metrics to the men...).
So all together now: "We resolve in the New Year to carry appropriately festive purses when the occasion demands it." If Madame sees a single oversized hobo bag with a cocktail dress when the ball drops, she will personally turn it into a garrote.
Now please excuse her. She must go dig an aspirin out of her Judith Leiber Buddha minaudiere.

Louboutin Love For Less, Part Deux

There have been several questions about the entry on shoe dyeing, so Madame thought she would explain further and share a spectacular failure of her own (yes, do record the date).

Shoes need to be suede or satin in order to take the dye well and evenly. Velvet may or may not turn out well, depending on the fiber content (ask your Shoe Guy, bien sur). The lighter the color originally, the better the results will be (and the more color options you have). Technically, one could also dye cotton or hemp shoes, too, if you are, say, a devotee of Stella McCartney's line.

And Madame's failure? In the endless pursuit of exact elegance she decided her favorite gold-and-silver Miu Miu sandals were just a little bit Fredericks of Hollywood in light silver, but would be perfectly Ritz in a lovely gunmetal-with-sheen color.

Long-suffering Shoe Guy did his very best (as always), but leather simply does not take well to forced change (a temperment Madame Shock understands very well, actually). With the first step every crinkle and point of ease immediately shed its dark outer layer, and now Madame's dear shoes look, well (she can handle a moment of truth now and then)...they look kind of trashy. Alors!

Let Madame's heartbreak save you and your dear Shoe Guy from worse.

Louboutin Love for Less

Once upon a time Madame Shock was a mere mademoiselle, sent abroad at a tender age to acquire some polish and education. (She ended up meeting Mademoiselle Chic and getting kicked out of school for stealing a ladder from a farmer's barn and using it to climb out the dormitory window to go clubbing all night...but that's another story.)

Armed with a copy of Born To Shop Europe and an "emergency" credit card, Mademoiselle Shock practically ran straight off the plane and into a secret Parisian shoe sale. There she acquired the most divine, velvety grey suede Christian Dior pumps. Knowing she could never wear grey before 30, she whisked her prizes to the Shoe Guy (see "Add-An-Inch" entry) for a quick dye job. Voila! Perfect buttery-soft, deep black masterpieces (that she wore clubbing, of course).

Ah, but Madame, you say, WHAT ABOUT THOSE GORGEOUS LOUBOUTIN BOOTS IN THE PICTURE??? You have been very sweet in allowing Madame her geriatric reminiscences, so here's the secret. Those boots, which Louboutin himself declared in InStyle magazine to be one of his favorite all-time styles, were sold out in black before they even hit the shelves. But the hot pink version (which we find very chic, indeed)...well, they languished in stores like pumpkins after Halloween until they were finally reduced to half price. HALF PRICE, dahlings!

Madame Shock snapped up two pair: one to keep in all their dramatic, hot pink glory, and one to dye a perfect buttery-soft, deep black.

And now she just might go clubbing.

Add-An-Inch

Ah yes, we could make many jokes about that, yes? But we don't have time, because we have something really important to discuss: SHOES!

Do you have a pair of shoes that you absolutely adore but are just not... fresh anymore? (We won't betray our age by admitting that there's anything snicker-able about that line, either.)

Anyway - take a shoe like our adored black satin pump with gold jeweled heel by Todd Oldham (before he sold out to every cheap licenser in town...). Hmmm. Such a lovely shoe. Now why don't we wear it? Perhaps because we have grown accustomed to towering, swaggering, sashaying through town on platforms that would make the Sun King swoon?

Well, just like said Solar Monarch you need to develop your court following. And first and foremost you need: a great shoe repair guy! Take those beloved but embarrassingly un-elevated shoes hence, and ask for a platform under sole and heel. Voila! Much better.

The caveat, we have found, is not to grasp more than you can chew (bite off more than you can..catch?) - whatever - basically just don't get over-ambitious and go too high. We are messing with nature here: the gods didn't favor those poor shoes with a healthy platform from birth, so pushing them too far (or high) toward fashionability will throw off the balance and end disasterously. (Look what happened to Courtney Love, after all.) Seriously, take heed: you can turn your Shannen Dohertys into Tina Feys but they'll never be Angelina Jolies.

Now, go gather those dusty, lonely shoes and give them new life! My shoe guy insists that the platforms can be easily removed when trends swing toward paper-thin soles again. At any rate, I'm sure it will be an easier job than making our ego adjust to being normal height again...

(Stay tuned for shoe repair guy, part II, where he actually makes our Louboutins more valuable)