After reading “Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over.” by Sabrina Orah Mark. For Essay Camp Day Three
one
Peak chic, according to me, is the brown and white polka-dot dress that Julia Roberts wore in Pretty Woman. Why is that not a staple style in literally every fast-fashion retailer? It makes anyone who wears it look at least ten notches more charming. Add pockets and you would have millions of people drone-bombing their money on you for that dress! And didn’t Asos re-create the blue and white dress she wears at the beginning, when Richard Gere engages her professional services? Neat, but that style looks hot on very few people — especially compared to the brown and white polka-dot! Which, as previously noted, is the closest proximation to a universally flattering dress that exists. I mean, really, how hard could this be? Who doesn’t love Pretty Woman? Who didn’t mistake the condoms she pulled out of her boots for those flat, round lollipops that came wrapped in square plastic?
two
business proposal for: JRPWBWP
summary: JRPWBWP is a Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman brown and white polka-dot dress bespoke atelier, to, you know, make this dress for whomever wants to buy one.
strengths: unearned confidence in my projection of the market’s need for this specific dress, a master’s degree in fashion journalism, having viewed every season of Project Runway on which Timothy MacKenzie Gunn was a host and mentor including the two seasons on Amazon Prime that weren’t Project Runway
weaknesses: no experience with a sewing machine or pattern-making, not super great at geometry in general, not super into capitalism
opportunities: this dress looks great on all bodies so the market includes humans, dogs, cats, dolls, teddy bears, koalas (which are not bears), lamp posts, really anything.
threats: kind of a one-off item that if repurchased would only be done so after a few years, zero start-up capital, zero social-media followers, neither of my parents are famous or wealthy, there are literally so many people who are better at doing business than I care to be
JRPWBWP, more than just a dress, a revolution, in mid-length summer dresses that are brown and white polka-dot
three
Until recently, the phrase “strawberry legs” would have called to mind Pretty Woman and the scene where she goes to floss the strawberry seeds out of her teeth and he thinks she’s doing drugs in the bathroom. This follows an entire introduction where the camera caresses Julia Roberts’ legs. Strawberry legs.
These are the kind of associations that come from the movies you see as a tiny child.
Then someone needed to sell women something useless, so they focused the oppressive lens even closer on women’s bodies and came up with Strawberry Legs. Those red spots that are your hair follicles after you shave your legs.
I learned about Strawberry Legs from an Instagram ad, when it had been at least five weeks since I last shaved.
I learned about traditional razor burn while playing on an inflatable trampoline on a lake in summer, sometime before I started shaving regularly. Although the explanation provided to me was not quite accurate, at least I learned it was something that happened to me and not a deeply personal character flaw.