Fashion Forward

"Fashions fade, style is eternal." — Yves Saint Laurent

Madame Lue looked at the handbag in disgust.

“Oh, that’s terrible, Ferdinand; truly, terrible. I’ve seen roadkill with more life than this. If my child made this in art class, I’d spank them and send them to bed hungry.”

“But Ms. Lue,” he stuttered, “the stitching—”

“It’s GHASTLY!” she shouted. “Now, make it disappear before I turn to stone.”

Ferdinand picked up the handbag and scurried out of the workroom. Madame Lue sat in a plush, high-backed chair and tenderly rubbed her temples.

“Imbeciles,” she muttered under her breath. “I work with complete and total imbeciles. God, must I tattoo good taste underneath their eyelids!”

A young woman stood in the doorway. “Ms. Lue,” she said with hesitation. “Your two o’clock is here.”

Madame Lue glanced at her watch and squinted as the light reflected off the circle of diamonds around the clock face. “Now, who is my two o’clock?”

“Marcus, Ms. Lue.”

“Right…right. Yes, well, send him in. There’s no way this day could get any worse…I swear, who is in charge of hiring these designers?”

The young woman knew that Madame Lue had approved of all the hires herself, but she just smiled politely and scurried out of the workroom to fetch the next victim.

Madame Lue stood up, reached down to her sock, and pulled out a narrow Turkish cigarette. She lit it and enjoyed a long drag before snuffing it on the table beside her.

A tall man, thin like a skeleton, strode into the workroom wearing cut-off jean shorts and an oversized blouse. Under his arm was a parcel in creamy tissue wrapping.

“Madame Lue,” he projected. “I have with me the future of accessories. Not only does it transcend gender and design, but I believe it will rewrite the tenets of functional fashion—nay—what we consider fashion itself.”

Madame Lue reached for another cigarette.

“My god, dear. Keep talking like that, and you’ll give me an ulcer. Now, I won’t bother addressing your outfit because my time on Earth is precious, but I must insist that you remove what you’re carrying from that roll of tissue paper and show it to me at once. Otherwise, I swear on my fourth husband, I’ll kill you.”

“Unwrapping now,” Marcus said quickly. He placed the parcel on the table before her and adroitly removed it from its paper cocoon.

Madame Lue stared at it blankly. “You have sixty seconds. Now tell me what I’m looking at.”

Marcus cleared his throat and smiled. “A handbag, Ms. Lue—one that is too thin to be a purse yet too thick to be a wallet or clutch. It serves no purpose and has no function except for being dysfunctional. I’m calling it ‘The Useless Bag.’”

For a moment, there was silence. Madame Lue picked up the bag and flipped it from front to back, inspecting the materials, dimensions, and angles. After some time, she set it back down and glanced up at the designer. She bit her lower lip, lit her cigarette, and inhaled deeply before releasing a plume of dirty white exhaust. “We’ll sell millions…” she whispered. “Millions.”

***I’m back after a brief hiatus! Please share with your fashion-loving friends. Together we can make the ‘Useless Bag’ the next big trend.***