St. Louis is kind of unique in that it wants really hard to be taken seriously as a city, but it refuses to give up its small town values in the process. So a few times a year, something like this happens. And a decent number of city & county folk show up in earnest, and people like me and Laine show up to giggle at them. In the infancy of St. Louis fashion week, we went to a lingerie runway show at Grove Fest two years ago, which was immediately followed by an ARRG demonstration. This wasn't quite as fun as that. But besides the fashion glitterati and St. Louis Magazine photographers and me and Laine, fashion backward disgraces that we are, the lobby of the Lumiere Place Hotel also harbored indie craft icons like Courtney Chesley's Twisted Handmade and Kat Kissick's Katatomic Labs. Watching six-foot-tall models (Courtney and Kat were calling them gazelles, or antelopes, or something) try on upcycled jewlery and hair accessories was a hoot. And here and there, a bubba in a ball cap and Cardinals tee would walk by, drinking the free Budweiser products with pinkies raised.
On the way out, we stopped by a local salon's booth to watch the makeover demo they were showing on a laptop. It was a recording of the day their salon was featured on Channel 5's morning news segment on makeovers (I guess) and they took a dowdy looking mom with lifeless hair and dull coloring and transformed her into a slightly less dull-faced woman with the hair of someone twice her age. The quintessential St. Louis experience came however, when I realized that woman looked familiar to me. In fact, she was my best friend from sixth grade. Hi Wendi!
What I'm trying to say is: Keep in touch, St. Louis. Don't Ever Change, No Matter What.
