Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

What Wendy Wore: A Cursed Versace

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A friend of mine had his 60th birthday party at the Copacabana last Friday.

I thought it was the perfect occasion for a Versace dress that I haven’t worn since the premiere of the movie Along Came Polly in Los Angeles in 2004 (my film-editor stepdaughter worked on the movie). My dress picked up bad styling karma that night. For a start, I was more dressed up than Brad-Pitt-era Jennifer Aniston, the star of the movie, which made me feel kind of “off.”

Photo courtsey Exposay.com. Click for source.

But what really made me feel bad that night was the lousy makeup job I got. It was the full L.A. look — orange skin, drag-queen eyes, glossy lips.

WendyB in 2004. Click for an old post about Versace.

Last week, I was ready to redeem the dress. I had my tall friend Tennille do my makeup. But I went to a random neighborhood salon for hair. (I didn’t have time to get to either superstar haircut guy Keith Carpenter or superstar hairstylist Julie Matos.) I was planning to do a blowout, but decided to pay extra for a little chignon. It looked very cute. But by the time I was putting on my dress an hour later, bits of hair were coming down. I kept pinning them up until I realized I was fighting a losing battle and took my hair down completely. Imagine my surprise when I saw what was anchoring the whole look: an ordinary rubber band.

This was in my hair.

In the past, when I’ve taken my hair down after a professional ‘do, I’ve found plenty of hairpins, as well as interesting hair elastics, often imported from Japan. This was the first time I found office supplies. When it comes to office supplies, I appreciate a nice, fresh, pink eraser. (I also like erasers that look like little animals and smell like bubblegum.) I have no interest in rubber bands, so this was a shock. I called the salon and it was closed, so I sent a strongly worded email and was promised reimbursement and a free blowout.  I’m not sure if I’ll avail myself of the latter. It’s a little like getting a free meal from a restaurant that gave you food poisoning.

I thought my hair sans chignon looked a little showgirl-ish, but — hey! — it was the Copa so it worked.

What Wendy Wore
Dress: Versace (2003 or 2004)
Shoes: Prada (2010)
Earrings: From my personal collection
Hair: Office-supply-free, no thanks to the salon that I will not shame here

I had a good time — and a few gallons of white wine — but I still feel this dress has a curse upon it. When I wear it again in 2018, I’ll be more careful with my hair and makeup!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I think you look great this time around even with your hair down. But I’d be pretty pissed off if I found a rubber band in my hair, not only is it stupid (why would you be paying for a fucking rubber band?!) it also is pretty damn awful and painful to get of your hair!

  2. A rubber band? Do they do highlights using White-Out?!

    And things could be worse; you could be the owner of a certain Porsche 550… eek!

    But no matter; your hair looks really cute there at the Copa, Copacabana, and in 2004, too!

    Finally, I look forward to seeing this dress again in 2018, when I will be 40. ;P

  3. that’s baaaaaad (the rubber band chignon). slackers (hope this word translates well to US English). you and the dress however, look awesome. I wonder what else they try to do with rubber bands?

    • Yep, definitely a slacker.

      I bet my normal TALENTED hair people WOULD be able to do something genius with a rubber band. Not like they would because that would be weird and unprofessional…

  9. It must have hurt pulling a rubber band out of your hair!

    Thank you so much for putting that song in my head I’m sure it will loop over and over again all day long.

    I really like the dress, cursed or not.

  11. I used to know a girl in high school who used ordinary rubber bands all the time for her ponytails. And I never ceased to wonder whether she found them painful to take out.

    The dress looks great on you though!

  12. i think that dress is great!
    cracking up about the lone rubberband holding your hair in place, especially since you have fine hair.
    everything slides out of fine hair.
    i will admit Cobacobana is a guilty pleasure song of mine
    you were looking fab my dear
    brett

  15. You didn’t find any paper clips along with that rubber band? Everyone knows that rubber bands rip your hair out of your head when you try to remove them! WTF??

  16. The LA look wasn’t a good look for you, but the refreshed Wendy-B!Classic! Looks great. I think your hair came out artfully disheveled. How disgusting is that rubber band though! I’ve been to teaching salons that made the student WALK up the street to buy proper bands/etc to do client’s hair if they didn’t have what they needed.

    • Aw, thanks. I’m just lucky that the hair came down okay. Sometimes it’s really glued into position and I would have had to rewash it to get it down…except I didn’t have time. It could have been worse!

  20. World of difference! The first photo, I thought… that hardly looks like Wendy! Yes, you were very L.A. luv. Still beautiful, but not quite as NY chic as you normally are. I’m never moving to L.A.