Free Fashionistas by Lynn Messina

importance of the bell jar.
    Marguerite steps up to the plate. “I have a few ideas for the upcoming wedding issue.”
    Giving Marguerite the floor was not Jane’s intention andshe glares at her nemesis. “I’m sure you do, but I would rather start with the junior…”
    “We should do a feature on bridesmaid dresses,” she says, as if Jane weren’t still speaking. Jane, who has never been confronted with this tactic, trails off into stunned silence. We all notice and try desperately to hide our smirks. Some of us don’t succeed but Jane is too angry to notice.
    Marguerite continues, seemingly oblivious. “I was thinking about how people always say that you can wear your bridesmaid dresses again. Even with the most hideous dresses, someone, usually the bride, insists that if you cut the hem and dye it black, it will be a lovely cocktail dress. But nobody ever does. What if we got five or six bridesmaid dresses and gave them to designers—Michael Kors, Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan—and asked them to make them wearable?”
    “I’ve got six dresses in my closet ready to go,” announces Christine. “Just say the word.”
    There is general agreement around the table. You don’t get to your late twenties without wearing at least one pink dress with a sweetheart collar.
    “I have an awful Maid Marian gown in forest-green,” says Allison. I know all about her Maid Marian gown in forest-green. Allison spent weeks and weeks trying to change her sister’s mind. First she reasoned, then she cajoled, finally she begged. It was all for naught. The elder Harper was determined to have her medieval-style wedding, despite the fact that jousting was made illegal at the turn of the eighteenth century. As I learned from many hours of eavesdropping, you can always find someone willing to get on a horse and dodge a five-foot lance for a few hundred bucks.
    “Maid Marian?” an editor asks, amazed by the depths to which a bride will sink. “Gee, and I thought the Empire-waist periwinkle-blue thing my cousin made me wear was bad.”
    Allison laughs. “Please, I’d kill for an Empire wai—”
    “It’s an interesting suggestion,” says Jane, trying to draw attention away from Marguerite’s very good idea, “but thereare strict rules in this company about utilizing our own people for anything in the magazine.”
    This rule applies to using Ivy Publishing employees in layouts, not their cast-off bridesmaid dresses, but Marguerite has a better idea anyway. “Of course, Jane,” she says, as if she is expecting this objection, “I’m aware of the company’s rule. But I thought we could turn to our readers for dresses.”
    “Our readers?” Jane asks, thrown off by the concept, as if she’s unsure who these people are.
    “Yes, we can have a contest of sorts and ask our readers to send in photos of their ugliest bridesmaid dress,” Marguerite explains. “We’ll select the ten worst and give them to designers.”
    “That’s an excellent idea,” says one of the photo assistants, whose enthusiasm for the project momentarily overcomes her good sense. If you want to last at Fashionista, you do not offer compliments to people Jane is trying to skewer with her eyes. “We can get before and after shots of them.”
    The annual wedding issue already has one layout with regular women wearing bridesmaid dresses. There is no way Jane will allow two. She feels the same way about regular women as she does soap opera actresses. As far as she’s concerned, soap opera actresses are regular women.
    “Yes, an interesting idea and I’m sure it would be perfect for your average Australian.” Jane gives Marguerite an artificial smile. It’s the only kind she’s capable of. “However, here at Fashionista, we’re not dressing kangaroos. Our readers are a little bit more sophisticated.”
    “Our readers weren’t kangaroos,” Marguerite says pleasantly. She’s trying to appear as if the insult doesn’t bother her, but her