Be A Style And Media Sensation In 6 Easy Steps
In order to make your mark in 2014 and gain any kind of notoriety, you must be willing to take certain risks.
Sure it helps to be a savvy self-promoter, but above all else, you must have a calculated edginess to your look and your lifestyle. If, like me, you tend to gravitate towards blazers, dark wash blue jeans and sitting home in your pj's on a Friday night drinking herbal tea, you're out of luck. You’re much too humdrum boring and blah to ever dream of Tom Ford naming a pair of sunglasses after you, becoming a fixture on Page Six or vacationing at Parrot Cay on Turks and Caicos with the likes of Donna Karan, Bruce Willis and Keith Richards. (I do hear it's super fun there.)
If, unlike me, you are willing to alter your appearance, lifestyle and personal philosophy for fame, glamour and door to door car service (worlds better than public transit or actually having to drive yourself anywhere ever again or so I've been told) , I have a list of specific things for you to do toot sweet:
1) Run out and dye your hair platinum blonde like Jean Harlow, Marilyn, Edie Sedgwick, Debbie Harry, Madonna, Pam Anderson, Gwen Stefani, Rita Ora and of course, fashion's eccentric It Girl and beer heiress Daphne Guinness. Blonde hair gets attention and plenty of it. People are quite simply fascinated by blondes. Hitchcock was and only cast blonde actresses in his movies. Blonde Barbie is still the best selling doll on the planet. Make your hair platinum blonde and all that attention and fascination are magnified exponentially.
2) If your hair starts falling out from the peroxide, have it cut into a pixie. Don't be afraid of such a drastic change - Most likely, everyone will applaud and compare you to actress Jean Seberg, still ultra famous for her role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (released back in 1960). We've seen this phenomena first with actress Michelle Williams, who cut off her hair after the death of partner Heath Ledger and more recently, Pamela Anderson, who cut off her hair after she remarried the 3rd of her 3 ex-husbands. You could not turn on a smart phone, tablet or TV without seeing pictures of pixie Pam, could you?
3) Get yourself romantically linked to a troubled yet genius singer or actor. Think vintage Edie Sedgwick and Bob Dylan or Patti Boyd and Eric Clapton or more recently, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty and of course, Kate Moss and Jamie Hince. If things don’t work out and it turns out to be only a short-lived fling, at least you’ll (probably) have at least one rock song or tragically brilliant acting performance that was inspired by YOU as well as plenty of (hopefully flattering) paparazzi pictures of the two of you.
4) Wear a pair of distressed blue jeans with plenty of holes to a fancy cocktail or black tie event. If you buy the jeans ripped, do not admit it - unless someone wants to name a style of jean after you or (even better) offer you a stint as the spokes model or guest designer for their line. Also, and most importantly, be sure to tell anyone who will listen that you’re channeling either Ralph Lauren’s look from last year's CFDA’s or Madonna's Papa Don't Preach video from 1986. Those are, after all, 2 of the most groundbreaking moments in fashion history for destroyed denim.
5) Be sure to always travel with at least one pet in tow and insist on taking him or her with you everywhere. Oh, I don't go anywhere without my cat, toy dog or Russian turtle. I mean Valentino never looked more chic than when exiting his private plane somewhere in Europe with a gaggle of his pups. Extra points for any paparazzi photos of you deplaning from a private jet - with or without pets - and using the word deplane on a regular basis going forward. Most people will, like me, google it to make sure that it is in fact a real honest to goodness word.
6) Don’t drink coffee. Coffee is so five minutes ago. You’ll have to wean yourself off it and start drinking anything that contains green powder, Whey protein or Acai berries. If such a drink is not available, you should insist on designer water such as Penta Ultra Purified Water (J.Lo requested it for her April 2014 cover shoot for In Style magazine) or Volvic Natural Spring Water (from volcanoes in France). Forget Evian, Poland Springs or even Fiji. Those brands are now too readily available. Too common. You can pop into any CVS or market and pick them up. You want something rare and harder to procure. Your water should be special!
Follow this and in no time, I'm sure I'll be seeing you in W, the NY Times Sunday Styles section or on the Fashion Police on E! Entertainment Television. And make sure you have a good pair of sunglasses. From Tom Ford. You'll need them when you're dodging that media onslaught and the flashes from those pesky I-Phone cameras.