Queer Eye for the Straight Girl
Why do I love women? It’s never been because of what they’re wearing.
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Although I like to think of myself as an overachiever, the best I can be, by Queer Eye standards, my gay sensibility is somewhat lacking. Yes, I love soap operas, the Oscars, Lifetime, lists, and rooms with a view, but try as I might, I’ve never really gotten into show tunes, Paris, Judy Garland, or Liza with a Z.
I’ve always sort of known that I don’t have 20/20 queer-eye vision, but it was confirmed one night about 13 years ago while I was out with a friend in Buenos Aires. He was griping about a mutual friend and his alleged crimes against social and fashion etiquette. It was bad enough that our buddy was high-maintenance, but did he have to be so clueless, too? How dare he not know Chanel from Givenchy, or what Louboutins are?!
I nodded in agreement and held my tongue in shame. I didn’t want to admit it — I didn’t know how to admit it — but he wasn’t the only one. Sure I knew “Louboutins” was the name of a recent failed Jennifer Lopez single, the song she was lip-syncing when she fell on her ass while performing at the American Music Awards in 2009, but truth be told, not only did I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I wouldn’t have recognized a pair of them if they had fallen out of the sky and knocked me upside my head.
And now, here we are, smack dab in the middle of another awards season. The day after any latest red-carpet event, as the so-called fashion police start Monday morning quarterbacking, breathlessly announcing their best- and worst-dressed lists, my eyes start glazing over. What was Michelle Yeoh wearing when she yelled “I can beat you up!” as the “Wrap it up!” music interrupted her acceptance speech last month at the Golden Globes? I had no idea.
It’s not that I’m sartorially challenged. Au contraire, I clean up pretty well. And nothing warms my heart and my torso like a soft Theory or John Varvatos sweater. But any metrosexual male would say the same thing. The love of good grooming isn’t a strictly gay thing. (Though oral hygiene has always been paramount to me…
