Bio : Stan Long is a published writer and single father who, once his chores are done, lives in his head and when his mind and his screen go blank, must wrestle with the idea of virtual reality - hence his motto taken from Aesop:
"Beware you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."
"But Geoffrey, I'm a mediaeval scholar."
"Yes, yes, I know but Freda's been called home. Her mother's near death, Jocko's on vacation and I've no one to spare. Your book reviews and her Fashion column - you can do both."
"But . ."
"No buts. The Show is a first and the experience will do you good."
There was no arguing. I needed the job so I did as I was told.
It was the first New York Fashion Show for Men and its first ten minutes set a buzz going on the catwalks from Milan to Gay Paris that lasted months. At the time, the whole scene was foreign to me but I'll never forget it. Maestro of the bizarre, Rafe Lowgrin, a renegade from Brooklyn, sent the critics of haute couture bumpeddy bump on their sweet asses, and the In Crowd, choking on their bubbly.
I'd got a seat in the back row where I'd sat full of unease at being given the ridiculous assignment of filling my notepad with the insipid posturings of a highend fashion show and it was with some sense of the cynical, that I polished up my spectacles. I couldn't afford to miss a nuance of it.
Without fanfare but the dimming of the lights, out on the darkened runway and looking neither to left or right, came clanking, the last of the conquistadors. How ironic, I thought, it was a safe bet I was the only person in the audience who would recognise his suit; a full harness of classic, 15th century, Milanese armor.
He began to undo it as he walked by letting his gauntlets fall which allowed his nimble fingers to undo the laces that held the suit together. Quickly followed; cuirass; pauldrons; couters; tassets; greaves and sabatons - I could name each part - all these making a mighty clatter in his wake, until with silken movements worthy of a first-class stripper, he peeled off the last of his padded undergarments and finally, his helm.
Then followed a noise of shock and awe unlike any applause I've ever heard and it reverberates still through the world's top fashion houses like the remnants of the Big Bang. Shades of S&M and Torquemada; Jaochim, the infamously nubile cover boy of Pan, stood buck naked - well, almost.
Goat Boy, as he was known by the cognoscenti, then sashayed down the runway like a Hollywood starlet; gold hair swaying in a curtain of dreadlocks; gob gagged and lit up with an electric array of fibre optics, while nothing else covered him except a purple-dyed codpiece of Argentinian bull-hide studded with cubic zircons set in silver that bobbed indelicately upon his crotch.
Talk about the fashion statement of the year - well, of the decade.
The mags had a field day. "Foul" cried The Bazaar; "In The Groove" said Diaz; "Hot to Trot" headlined Glam; "Someone Dropped a Clanger" needled Men Only and "Hotshot," crowed Juicy Couture. But I hated their reviews. God, the whole exercise had been so damn tiresome and essentially dishonest to myself - this filling in for Freda and her Fashion and Culture column.
I'll never live it down. Freda decided to stay home and look after her mother at which, under duress, I've accepted the job of Fashion Editor. Only good thing is, I'm having lots of luck with the girls since I've dropped my mediaeval tweeds in favor of the dapper designs of Evol Dog. I love their "minimalist edge."
