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Blooming Bohemians
March 15th, 2009
I have found validation of the old joke that San Francisco is Hollywood pretending to be Paris (or perhaps Paris Hilton).
The exhibit at right is certainly pleasing to the eye. Well, at least male eyes and the eyes of lesbians that prefer lipstick lez mates.
The caption and the girl’s outfit itself summarize San Francisco’s low rent self image, that of counter culture and libertine lifestyles. The very caption — Be a Bohemian — is verily an echo of the Summer of Love and the Beatnik generation before that. Her ensemble is vintage 1968, with fringe vest, peasant shirt and cut-off denim shorts (despite the venial sin of donning shorts an atypical saintly white and not mandatory faded indigo).
The set can be bought at Bloomingdales.
For my overseas readers, Bloomingdales is upscale in the same sense that politicians are sleazy. People earning under six figures a year are barred from the building. Valet parking is difficult as the lot if plagued with limousines and their drivers. Bloomingdales biggest blunder was running out of caviar for customer snacking during the Christmas shopping season.
Just the place to find non-conformists.
Thus the Bloomingdale bohemian blouse is a mere $228. The suede vest slightly more at $258. The factory cut-off sorts $178.
In other words, upper-class San Franciscans can feign flower child iconoclasms for a paltry $664 … plus 8.75% sales tax.
