By Karen Brack
(Reprinted from the August 1996 M-Aura, the newsletter of North Texas Mensa)
Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, there is a small island owned by a powerful secret cabal of men: The Arbiters of Women's Fashion. The Arbiters had gathered, as they do each quarter, to determine the trends, the fads and the fashions that women would be torturing themselves to fit into in the seasons to come. Of course, The Arbiters are an exclusively male organization. Although little is known about the members of this group, this much is certain, for surely, no woman would ever come up with mini-skirted business suits for the dead of winter. Ideas such as this are one of the reasons that the identities of the Arbiters is a closely held secret, as is the location of their island.
An Arbiter named Lars was drawing one day, working on ideas for shoes for the coming summer fashion season, which would begin, of course, in February (such is the power of the Arbiters). While drawing, he accidentally dripped some ink on the page. When Lars tried to clean off his mistake, the ink smeared and only made the picture worse. He tried to cover up his error by working it into the drawing, but what he ended up with was a monstrous design. Lars had drawn a heavy, thick soled, clunky high-heeled sandal. It was awful. Before he could hide his mistake, two other Arbiters entered the room.
"I'm telling you," Milo was saying, "We need to explore more deeply the idea of disposable women's clothing. Once we hit upon panty hose, we just rested on our laurels. We dropped the ball. Oh, hi Lars, what have you got there?" "Oh, it's nothing," replied Lars, as he tried to dispose of the incriminating paper.
"Now, let us see. Hmmm...That's not so bad. It could sell," said Maurice, "If we handle it right."
"You must be joking," said Milo, "what woman would wear such a shoe? Especially in summer. We'd be laughed out of our villas if we tried to sell that."
"It's easy," Maurice answered, "we'll send a few pairs to our agents in the wardrobe departments of some hit T.V. shows so they'll show up on the air. Then we'll send some to a few stars who will be appearing on some award show or other. We'll let it be 'leaked' that the shoes are just on loan. If the stars can't keep them, that'll make the public want them even more. Next, we-"
"Oh, you mean Ego Manipulation Plan No. 207," interrupted Milo. "It just might work. Especially in America. All we have to do is call it 'fashion' and price it high enough. They'll buy anything if we price it high enough."
"Yes," said Lars thoughtfully, "it could work. Look at what we're selling now. We took a bunch of clothes that looked like depression-era thrift store rejects, priced the T-shirts alone at $92.00, and those Guatemalan children can't sew fast enough to keep up with the demand. All we had to do was place that junk on a few CD covers and - Voila - a new fashion statement for the masses and new Manhattan penthouses for us!"
"But that was just a fluke, you can't expect American women to fall for that again! Besides, this was a mistake," insisted Milo, waving at the drawing of the sandal.
"So were hot pants and go-go boots..."
The debate raged on into the night. Eventually a bet was made.
Who can say what kind of stakes the Arbiters of Fashion wager. Perhaps
it was a new yacht, perhaps it was a beer. Whatever their wager may
have been, we can bet on one thing. Somewhere in the Mediterranean,
an Arbiter is enjoying a beer on his new yacht.