Bicoastal Babe (18 page)

“I do? Where? With whom?”

“With the head apparel buyer for Bloomingdale’s. And the head cosmetics buyer for Sephora. And Bob Schricter, L.A.’s top club promoter. These people have formulas for planning ahead. It’s time to do some serious brain-picking.”

Wow. I guess I was on the right track back in New York. If only I’d followed through.

“How did you swing all those meetings?” I wonder.

“Lindsey, I know people. I’ve even got some appointments myself. Then we’re going to rally over dinner and go over everything we’ve learned. Nine o’clock at Mr. Chow’s. It’s a great place to take notes on outfits, drinks, bar conversations, whatever we think of. Now hop to it.”

•   •   •

Forty-eight hours later my brain is so fried that I could melt some cheese on it and eat it for breakfast with a slab of Canadian bacon. Liz and I have worked nonstop – brainstorming, theorizing, interviewing, tabulating – and I am on a roll. I’ve never been so mentally tired, but I’m also exhilarated, like I’ve downed a gallon of coffee and am buzzing with nervous, giddy energy. Liz’s “go get ’em” attitude is infectious, and we’re learning together, teaching each other, finding a groove that is still undefined, but feels like it’s leading to something big. My inner voice is telling me to get ready – for what, I’m not sure. But something is happening. And this time it’s for real.

E
ach day with Liz begins with breakfast at her swanky hotel. We sip frozen cappuccinos and discuss some element of theory behind trend forecasting. Mostly we’re making it up as we go, but Liz is all about originality, designing our own method, and understanding it from the inside out.

Monday and Tuesday we talk about creation and evolution – of trends, that is. After bouncing ideas back and forth like a tennis match, we decide that most trends have a distinct life cycle that can be mapped and charted with a decent amount of certainty. Let’s use UGGs as an example – plain sheepskin boots from Australia that retail at $150, but were suddenly owned by every big celebrity, and worn with shorts and tank tops in the middle of summer.

UGGs were first spotted on the likes of Kate Hudson and Cameron Diaz, as they walked down the street on a warm Sunday morning with their coffee and newspaper. Captured in
Us Weekly,
this image causes the average person to do a double take, because really, the whole thing looks pretty silly. Even the magazine seems unsure whether or not to call attention to it yet. But this is actually a key moment – it is the trend’s first poke into the world, squeezed from the birth canal of a tiny group that Liz and I named the Trendsetting Elite. Kate and Cameron don’t care that they look ridiculous, because they know that soon the nation will pounce and scramble to keep up while they nonchalantly move on to the next thing.

Very quickly after the Trendsetting Elite put their handprints on something new, a small group of regular people who just happen to be
really
“in the know” catch the early buzz and get in on the excitement. Liz and I have dubbed this group “the Number Twos.” They are people like Carmen, who hear about new trends way before most people – not from magazines or ads, but whispered between the select ears of women at the salon, in the coolest clubs, in the chichi boutiques. Carmen was undoubtedly strutting around in UGGs for the short time that everyone else at the grocery store still muttered, “What is she
wearing!”
under their breath as she walked by. The Number Twos usually have about two to three weeks to themselves before the trend blasts its way into omnipresence in the third step of its life cycle:

The magazines. This is when a trend gets bar mitzvahed. When it is formally introduced to the world and stamped as officially cool – a definite “must-have” for the season. If the trend is really big, it may even show up on television shows such as
Entertainment Tonight
or
Extra.
In any case, news travels fast. And overnight, what Liz and I call “the Cool Boomers” begin storming the stores in search of the trend. This is the stage when UGGs’ price suddenly shot up, the inventory stalled, and they became tagged as “really hard to find.” The Cool Boomers mostly reside in large cities, with a small selection of suburban and rural misplants who order everything online, because anything worth having is certainly not sold in or around small towns. The Cool Boomer phase makes up the bulk of a trend’s life span, but it’s just a matter of time before it becomes a bit too overplayed and loses the interest of the Trendsetting Elite. Just about the time when I wandered into Nordstrom and tried on my own pair of UGGs, Kate and Cameron were shoving theirs toward the back of the closet.

And then the calm before the storm. The trend is winding down in big markets and, for a short while, seems to have lost its steam and almost disappears. But the calm is only an illusion, because what’s really going on is this: Millions of factories in China are in the production process, cranking out cheap knockoffs of the trend that will soon hit the shelves across Middle America in what Liz and I have named “WalMart Mania.” But by the time you can purchase your own imitation UGGs for $14.99, most of the Cool Boomers have begun to realize how stupid they look anyway, and Kate and Cameron would no longer be caught dead in them. Despite that you can now find the given trend at Bueller’s Funeral Parlor, picking out its own casket and headstone, this phase is where the real money is to be made. And after that, maybe a quick stint at the ninety-nine-cent store, and then poof – it’s gone.

However. Now and then, a trend has attributes that stretch farther and greater than simple fad appeal. These are trends of timeless quality, not like UGGs – but more in the vein of Nike running shoes. When a certain Nike style exhausts its life cycle, minor adjustments are made and the evolved shoe begins the progression all over again. Nike is an extreme example, but you still see it all the time. In terms of makeup, when the glowing “dewy” look became popular in the summertime, it just downright made sense. Who the hell wants their face to look like a matte pancake while lying on the sand at the beach? No one, that’s who. So dewy keeps coming back each year, with new and improved ways to achieve it, play with it, and perfect it. Designers and manufacturers know the difference between these two types of trends (as I am learning from my daily brain-picking sessions that Liz has set up through her countless contacts). Which is how they know whether or not to ditch a trend, or work to re-create it.

So this is our hypothesis on creation and evolution. We may be wrong about the whole thing, but we really don’t think so. If it weren’t for the hottie-pants cabana boy distracting us from across the pool as we try to eat breakfast and theorize every morning, our hypothesis would probably be even better. But I digress. I was telling you about Liz and me, and our seven days together in L.A.

After breakfast we hit the road. Usually one or two meetings with designers or store buyers, either separate or together, depending on the contact. Some on-the-street interviews, some people watching, and, for a break, about an hour of reading magazines and scoping out whatever’s “hot” on television. Then dinner at a hip restaurant, where we pool together our learning from the day and attempt to make sense of it all.

Despite that I still think it’s weird for Liz to be able to spend this much time on me (or more accurately, on
The Pulse
), I have to say that Liz Gordon is an absolute inspiration. Our morning discussions fuel me for the entire day, giving me the energy and excitement to tackle the things I used to be terrified of. Don’t get me wrong – I know that this week is coming to a quick end, and I’m going to be left alone again, scared and flailing. But maybe a little less scared? I don’t know. I hope so. I’ll find out soon enough.

Friday morning the researcher calls to report that some numbers have already come in on my questionnaire. I know it’s been out only a few days, but I can’t wait to see the tabulations and start to devise my plan of analysis. She e-mails me the pages and I pile them together, along with the original questionnaire. Liz has a conference call today, and I’m not meeting her until lunchtime, so I decide to go grab some coffee and read over this stuff.

Starbucks is fairly empty for a Friday morning, so I pick a table by the window and observe the room. After a week of people-watching with Liz, it’s almost becoming an instinct. When someone walks in, my eyes immediately graze over their outfit, their shoes, what they’re carrying. I listen to what they order and watch whether they pay cash or credit. If they’re talking on a cell phone (which most of them are), I eavesdrop on what they’re talking about. I find myself feeling a very strong urge to put a stamp on them, to define them and put them in some sort of category so I can feel like I know who they are, and I can move on to the next person. But I don’t know any categories, and it leaves me feeling frustrated and anxious.

“Excuse me,” a voice says, and I turn to find two teenage girls with pink Frappuccinos. “Did you drive here?”

I nod and give them the once-over. One is wearing a white miniskirt and a green tube top, and the other is in baggy shorts and a belly T-shirt. Their hair is cute and their tans are fake, but perfect. They look pretty cutting-edge to me, but then again, this is coming from a person who, at the same age, wore Madonna jelly bracelets and leg warmers as accessories. “Why?”

“We need a ride down to Beverly and Robertson, and we don’t want to take the bus.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to take rides with strangers?”

“Yeah, but ‘strangers’ usually means men. You’re a woman. And you’re wearing worn-out Birkenstocks, so you’re probably a peace-loving tree hugger or something. We trust you.”

“You shouldn’t trust me—you shouldn’t trust anyone. Shoes or no shoes. I could rob you and leave you for dead in the back of my stolen van. Or I could kidnap you and sell you to an Arab sheik for white slavery.”

They look at each other and burst into laughter, then begin a tennis match of trying to convince me.

“You look like you’re probably totally normal.”

“And it’s better than taking the bus.”

“And Stacey knows karate.”

“And we can pay you – if you take AmEx platinum.”

“It’s her mom’s.”

“Shut up! It is not!”

“Girls,” I interrupt. “Hold on a minute.”

They look back at me with puppy-dog eyes, but it occurs to me that in Los Angeles, anything is possible. In fact, I could be the one left for dead in the back of a van.

“I just want to reiterate that as beautiful young women, you should not get into a car with anyone you don’t know.”

Green Tube Top is defiant. “I bet you go on dates with guys you don’t know. Or guys you met only one time at a bar.”

“And I bet you let them pick you up in their car for the date,” Belly Tee chimes in. “What’s the difference?”

The smarty-pants twins have a point. Maybe I should learn karate too. But that’s neither here nor there.

“And just for the record,” I tell them firmly, “I am not a tree hugger. I
smoke,
I’ll have you know. Marlboro Lights.”

“Seriously?” Belly Tee is shocked. “God, smoking is so five years ago.”

“Yeah, totally,” Green Tube Top agrees. “Get with the program, big sister.” She slurps her drink. “So can we have a ride or not?”

Excuse me. Who are these little twits to be telling me what’s cool and what’s not cool? Who are they to suggest that I “get with the program?” Me, someone who gets
paid
to know what’s popular and what’s “so five years ago.” Who are these little teenyboppers to think that they can –

Wait a minute. Hold on just one second. I can feel enlightenment descending upon me like a miracle from heaven. And then suddenly, as we used to exclaim with grace and eloquence in the fourth grade, it hits me: DUH!!!

“All right, girls, I’ll tell you what.” I slyly motion for them to have a seat at my table. “You let me buy you another Frappuccino, and when we’re finished I’ll drive you anywhere you want. I promise.”

“Awesome!”

•   •   •

“So, like…what’s your deal?”

Two more coffee drinks later I am still at Starbucks with the girls. Their names are Stacey (Belly Tee) and McKenna (Green Tube Top), and they have turned out to be fun, interesting girls to talk to. I have picked their brains for an hour on trends and outlooks among their age group and people they know, and they are now wondering why.

I explain to them the concept of trend-tracking, and compliment them that they seem to be very “in the know” about what’s going on. They like this, and it seems to make them want to help me even more.

“That is one fucking cool job,” McKenna tells me. “How do you get a job like that?”

I bite my lip because I don’t quite know the right words for “be in the right place at the right time and hope your potential boss doesn’t recognize that your whole demeanor screams ‘incompetent idiot’ across the desk.” Better just to let it go. “Any more ideas for me?” I ask sweetly.

“Hey, what blogs do you read? You could get so much information from them for your trend thing,” Stacey tells me.

“What’s a blog?” I deadpan.

“What’s a blog?” They
look at each other, surprised. “Wow. How old
are
you?”

“I’m thirty-one.”

They wince, then give me looks of deep sympathy.

“A blog is a form of online communication,” McKenna explains gently. “It’s like a diary that you –”

“I know what a blog is,” I interrupt. “I was kidding.”

While this is true, I’d be willing to be that they know a hell of a lot more about the online social stratosphere than I do. They are young and cool, and I am the old, gray nerd who could learn a lot from them if I’m open to accepting their wisdom. As far as my job is concerned, they truly are a gold mine of information, and I wish I knew a way to use them even more.

On the way down to Beverly and Robertson, which is the gateway to a popular (but very expensive) shopping area, I give the girls my questionnaire and a red pen. By the time we pull up there are notes scrawled all up the margins with trends I need to be addressing in my outreach to the mass public.