At Madison Square Garden, as at many fashion shows, a chasm yawns between those who are blessed by nature and those whose job it is to prepare Cinderella for the ball. At Madison Square Garden, as at fashion shows, the anointed beauties perform for a moment and then rush to let down their fur. At Madison Square Garden, there are many reasons to envy dogs their essential nakedness.
These reasons include metallic brocade jackets, novelty jumpers, purple sweatsuit ensembles, sweat shirts with dog portraits outlined in Swarovski crystals, trousers with origami pleats and lug-soled walking shoes of a sort one associates with the lady ornithologist in Hitchcock's The Birds.
"Her coat is called oyster brindle," said Juan Miranda, a Mexican breeder, as he methodically used a hot comb to straighten the fur of an Afghan bitch known as Dolce
Gabbana of Damos. Unlike many of the handlers at Westminster, Miranda was simply attired, in a trim D&G suit. He was three hours into a grooming process, he explained, all for perhaps a half-hour in the ring.
In this way, too, dog and fashion shows are alike: orgies of effort yielding transitory effects. "It's about eight hours altogether," explained a groomer slumped in a chair beside Remy, the white standard poodle formally known as Brighton Minimoto. "It's three hours just for the bath and a couple hours more to clipper her," the groomer went on, adding that two more hours would be devoted to washing the hair spray out of Remy's tortured Bret Michaels (frontman of the band, Poison) bouffant, using Dawn dish soap.
Although a favorite to win Westminster, Remy was ultimately beaten by the little beagle Uno. And even in this unanticipated result could be detected elements of fashion.
With her topiary hairdo and visual allusions to the go-go 1980s ("a masterpiece carved with a pair of clippers," in the words of the Associated Press), Remy's was probably the wrong look for tough economic times. She was a Christian Lacroix pouf, to strain the analogy. And Uno the beagle was an honest cloth coat, much like the ones Michael Kors showed a week ago in Bryant Park.
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