Divasgusting

 

Style is so omnipresent in New York that even the water bottles are intimidatingly fashionable.

Turns out this Missoni/Pelligrino collaboration was the most stylish thing I would see on the day when I take a 'diva' shopping tour of the garment district with my fellow expat blogger Notes by a Stylist. Immediate alarm bells were ringing due to the use of the word diva in the title, being as I am neither a 6 year old girl who shops at Claire's Accessories or living in 1996.

Whenever alarm bells ring they never cease, they just get louder. When we met the tour guide on a Midtown corner, the bells are shaking my very core. She is wearing a waistcoat that was surely fashioned from my bathroom rug, with an iluminous pink nylon handbag. It wasn't like I expected her head to toe in Rodarte, but she looked like she was dressed in the dark by a four year old with A.D.D. 

We are told of the excitement and bargains ahead and are quickly herded to an anonymous looking office building around the corner where we all squeeze into a lift and arrive on the 10th floor. When we pile out, I spot the showroom for a cool department store brand and realise I have judged the whole thing too hastily. But no. We're not going there. No. We're going to the showroom of a coat designer, who I've never heard of who. But not to worry, because she has a crumpled copy of an old Oprah magazine, proving firstly that someone at a magazine once liked one of her coats and secondly that they normally retail at $1000. That's $1000! The showroom assistant shouts this as if she's talking to a group of Primary school children learning basic addition. "That's O-pa-raah! That's one thousand bucks! But for you today, most pieces retail at around... $300. That's a saving of...(nods her head excitably) SEVEN...HUNDRED...BUCKS!"

I have no interest in a new coat costing $300 so I mooch around sulking until I am pounced on by the actual designer. Why is she hawking her own stuff? Doesn't she have better things to do? Like...design something?

"You have to try this on!" she says. 
"No thank you" I say looking at a purple boucle wool coat so old fashioned my dead Nanna would have hesitated to wear it to bingo.
"No. You have to try it on!" she persists.
"No thank you."
"I insist."
"Uh...no."
"I'm not taking no for an answer!"
"Sorry, no."
"You know honey? This coat would be great for your with your big boobs, it's really flattering with the shawl collar..."

Yes she did. She really did. She went there. Ok, so it's no secret to the world that I have large breasts, they are right there every day, for all to see- distracting men from what I'm saying and making me look like a hooker in every blouse I wear. They ruin fashion choices, I need a second mortgage every time I buy a bra and I will never stand up entirely straight. So guess what? What I do not need, is this to be shouted out by a woman I just met in front of a group of strangers. I pause. Fix her with a menacing stare, the smile and say:

"I. DON'T LIKE IT. I DON'T LIKE YOUR COAT."

That sort of set the tone from there on in and Sara and I are like bored schoolgirls being dragged around an automotive museum. The depressing cycle of overpriced tat continues for hours, broken up only by the odd bit of cheap tat. At one point we're not allowed in a showroom because a buyer is there and the tour guide whispers.

"The buyers don't know we have these tours..."

Oh reeeeeeally? So the people who work in the industry don't know this goes on? I assume they are not only idiots, but also don't have Internet connections to google 'garment district showroom shopping tours'?

When we are at the point of no more we are taken into another showroom and the designer introduces herself by telling us she's hilarious. That's hilarious with lots of exclamation marks!!! I walk out and Sara follows. We skulk around outside for 15 minutes wondering before Sara has a genius plan. We're going to let everyone know what we think about this, in the most British way possible: We're going to run away.

No complaining, no honesty, no embarrassment. We prod the lift hastily, bolt out of the building and hail a cab on 7th Avenue and head for lunch where we drink to forget our Post Traumatic Dress Disorder.

Shhhhhh...

New York, like myself and The American has one volume setting...loud.

However, I think I can safely say the city and the husband trump me on both. When The American gets animated the walls actually shake a little. While on the phone I ask why he bothers actually using one-he could just as easily employ two tins cans and some string. His shout could not only wake the dead, it could catapult them from their graves and have them dancing a Mambo on 5th Avenue. Despite all this, he hears only my roar, as if the tiny hairs in his ear canal are tuned solely into my resonance:

"Honneeee. You're soooo loud." he often says to me.
"What? ME? How can YOU say that to ME?"
"Why are you getting angry? he laughs, as if he himself whispers his way through life.
"'Cos that is a fucking joke. You telling ME  I'm too loud!"
"Well, you're being loud right now!"
"Yes. 'Cos you're making me angry telling me I am too loud!"

With a loud husband and the loud city and the sound of my own (moderately loud) voice, I frequently crave quiet. I fantasise about leaving my family and living on a mountain- as long as the mountain had wifi- I want quiet, not boredom.

Our apartment would be an obvious choice as my haven of peace. It's at the back of the building of a fairly serene street, the peace is peppered only by the hum of air-con units, an occasional plane overhead or a distant siren on 7th Avenue.  But it has a major flaw-my family live in it. The bellowing American and The Teenager. While the latter is not loud, she does have a portable phone permanently glued to her ear in order to maintain constant connection to love of her life back in Cardiff. Her hair covers the handset, so I often think the constant chatter is aimed at me. This creates a lot of confusion, especially when I think she is calling me 'babes' and saying goodnight at 7 pm. Yes, havens of peace are hard to find in big cities. When there's three of you jammed in a pricey shoebox in the West Village, havens are hard to find in your own apartment too.

Today though, after 8 months and 19 days I found my peace. My quiet in the middle of NYC.

Today I found the New York public library and I now sit in this room:

What can I hear right now? Pretty much...Nothing. Not even the sound of breathing. There is just the occasional scraping of the elegant oak chairs against the tiled floor. Unlike this pic above (stolen from the internet) there must be 500 people here right now. It's like a giant exam room. Or a gathering of the civilised in a post apocalyptic movie, if they all decided to read and write with the end of humanity looming.

My surroundings are fantastically grand-from the long tables decked with reading lamps and leather bound reference books on the walls to the art deco chandeliers and neo classical ceiling. It's like a 1930's Gentleman's club, except it's a public space and there's free wifi. It's so unathomable for a girl that grew up going to a village library housed in a pre-fab.

For such public elegance though, you have to pay with compliance. There is no eating, drinking, mobile phones, photography or talking here. It's a room of zero tolerance and I will take it, as the pay off is jaw dropping.

Still, after a while the temptation to do something naughty is growing. I have already eaten half a Lara bar and have been getting a bit brazen with my water sipping. I have also tried taking pictures of the grand ceiling with the photo booth on my macbook-the results of which are not very good. Teach me for being so rebellious.

But such environmental perfection cannot last indefinitely. I wait for the catch...

Then the catch is wheeled in, in a stroller. Pushed by some liberal Yummy Mummy who thinks it's perfectly fine to risk everyone's calm by bringing a two year old into a quiet room. The toddler says:

"Gwaaa raa raa reee!"
"Shhhh" the Mother says.
"Gwaa raa raa reee" he repeats
"Shhhh" she says again, but then she laughs, which annoys me quite a lot.
"Din ba boo beee dem" he replies-which I understand is toddler speak for "Why I am in here? I can't even read yet."

Haven of quiet destroyed for now. I am packing up my laptop and leaving.

I will be back, though. This is still the best quiet that NYC has to offer. This is what I needed to find and the city gave it to me. It doesn't always kick sand in your face when you're down. Sometimes it gives you something back, a reward, a little gift.

Today it gave me this beautiful, breathtaking public place that only has one fault... it's open to the public. 




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