Rihanna's pants

So Else and I go out for her birthday dinner last night at a place in the neighborhood we'd heard about but never been to. It's on Sunset with some tables out on the sidewalk. When we arrive there's nobody there but us - the whole time we're there there's no one there but us. But the food was good.

After we leave we decide to stop in a clothing store which despite it being after 9 p.m. is still open. It's one of those pink, girly stores with cheap clothes and accessories and so at first we're browsing, looking for the sake of looking, wondering if we should drop $6 on a necklace that we'll never wear again, but could be so bad it's good? Then I notice on a table there's a skirt with amazing brocade fabric - I thought wow, China's doing some amazing stuff. I pick it up and notice that it is Zac Posen. I ask the young woman working, how much is this skirt? She says, oh that's $45. $45!! for a Zac Posen skirt? !

Very weird and out of place. Then the girl offers up some more info: "That was Rihanna's. My friend is Rihanna's closet organizer so he brought over a bunch of stuff that she was getting rid of." She shows a rack and hugs an armful, "all this stuff comes from Rihanna." We immediately b-line to that rack and savagely flip thru it, most of it very much pop star princess, and stuff we'd never wear but still the labels in a store like this are crazy: there's Jill Stuart, Zac, D&G, Norma Kamali blah blah blah. As we're doing that the girl says, "he also brought over a bunch of her jeans, I haven't put them out yet, do you want to see them?" Ah, yeah. She brings out a box of gifted jeans to Ms. R. All size 27! Most are gaudy as hell, there's D and G, chip and pepper, many tacky embroidered and glittery jeans and even a pair with her name embroidered, oh the poor soul who did that for nothing. I finally found a pair of Citizens for Humanity light wash high waisted, and a pair of bright green, skinny zipper ankle. I try them on and they both fit perfectly. The girl says they're $45 a pair. While I'm trying on the jeans, Else has found one of Rihanna's beautiful castaway shirts - which looks decidedly Japanese-y designed - black - very Comme des Garcons like by someone I'd heard of but couldn't really place which looked great on her - for $20.

The whole this was very surreal b'c we're in Echo Park and not anywhere near Hollywood in the sense of this city, at a cheapo store where the owner is sweet, latina girl with no idea that these items - the classic Norma Kamali swimsuit! Zac Posen skirt! - could get a whole lot more on the open market of ebay.

So I ended up getting the 2 pairs of jeans (pic below.) Not sure how I feel about the green jeans, but they could be fun once the weather actually permits us to wear pants again. Else got the black shirt and we both got feather earrings (not Rihanna's but I think she would have worn them) for $6. (pic included.)

A wonderful and bizarre ending to Else's birthday.

Now, in this time of Economic Crisis, I've got to stop buying, even if they're Rihanna's pants and, Nat, I'll be sending some trade-out pants your way in the coming days. Oh yeah, right after I go back and buy a few of R's t-shirts for my nieces which the shoplady is going to bring in for me.