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Friday, Nov 27, 2009
The next day we meet Dorado, his wife and the usual entourage for lunch atop Avila, the highest peak outside Caracas. The only addition to the party is the niece of Frida Kahlo, who is working with Dorado to license her aunt's name on products across Latin America. We go up through the clouds, and the city recedes until it is just a great pile of Legos left spilled and unattended in the jungle. Deep is particularly hip today, in a pair of wraparound sunglasses and an Armani T-shirt/belt ensemble inspired by the color yellow and the number 91. He points out the Venezuelan Twin Towers, one of which burned in a recent fire. The higher floors, which allegedly used to store election records that Chavez wanted torched, are black and sooty. American tourists ride in the other gondola cars, surveying the great vista of city below, not even pausing at the towers. Making things disappear isn't so hard after all.
At lunch Deep asks how the article is coming. I tell him that I think I have gotten some good material. He is encouraged.
"The New York Times is going to want this article!"
I have written exactly one article for the Times, and the Mexican must have mentioned this during my introduction to Deep. The mention of the Times draws approving looks and chatter from across the table. I think that this may have been the moment I was anointed Venezuelan fashion czar, but I cannot be sure; Spanish and Italian were the linguistic fare of the meal, and I don't speak a bit of either.
I find this fashion reportage to be quite taxing on my higher mental faculties. Political intrigue, class warfare, the constant threat of kidnapping, the future of socialism in Latin America -- these things can cloud the mind and make it difficult to focus on the issues that drew me to this field in the first place some 48 hours ago. Hemlines, fabrics, shoes. I'm talking about the real human drama. I take a nap back at the hotel and oversleep, rushing down to the lobby a bit after 8 p.m. to find an annoyed entourage waiting for me beside the armored Grand Cherokee. The man from Dolce & Gabbana, his Speedo-favoring lover, Frida Kahlo's niece; I have made them late, and they resent me for it.
And that is what brought me finally to the enormous white tent that Casablanca has erected in the center of the city. A spotless white runway cuts through the middle with perhaps a thousand of Caracas' most well-to-do sitting on either side. The press corps has had time to rest from its rigorous workout at yesterday's press conference and is in full form. I don't quite know where I fit into all of this, or even where I am supposed to sit, but soon all is clear. There is a seat in the very first row at the center of the runway. Upon this seat is a placard:
Reservado
New York Times
I don't possess the language skills to protest or correct, so the matter is settled; I am chief Venezuelan fashion correspondent for the New York Times. And although I am a fashion reporter of the highest caliber, I have to admit that it is remarkable to have risen so far so fast. Like a rocket. As I take my seat I notice a 30-something businessman and an elderly couple looking at me with great respect. Even Frida Kahlo's niece is impressed. I put the placard away, but it is no use. They are welcoming me on the P.A.
"Bienvenido, Signor Dana Bodkin Vachon..."
There is no going back now. I give a nod to the crowd and the show starts. A grating industrial beat takes over as a group of break-dancers comes out on the runway. They go from worms to backflips to frontflips to head spins to armstands, and the room bursts into applause as the models start to strut. The women have giraffe legs and surgery perfect breasts. The men march top heavy, with pumped chests and arms atop little stick legs. I take out my notebook.
The steady thump of Deep's house beats pulse from the ground. Computerized lights change with the music and fill the white tent with purples, reds and blues. A million-watt spotlight blasts down the runway, and a thousand flashbulbs explode each time a model hits the end.
Then it stops. The lights die. The sound cuts. Montalban's blonds look about anxiously. The models bop in place. Venezuela is a country whose vast natural wealth allows the tank of a Jeep Grand Cherokee to be filled with gasoline for a little under $2, but somehow the power has gone out. Ms. Venezuela comes out to calm the crowd with beauty. Dorado goes outside to see what has gone wrong. And the wealthiest residents of the capital of one of the world's most energy-rich countries can only remain seated, completely in the dark.
