Editor's Letter.(fashion editors interaction in society)

Dressed To Kill

colleague once told me that whenever she happened to share an office elevator with a particularly impeccable fashion editor, her confidence would start to unravel. On the ground floor, she looked shiny and smart, but as the elevator ascended, she felt warts growing on her nose and hair sprouting from her ears. There's an intimidating, almost oppressive quality about some well-dressed women that can make others feel frumpy. The fashion czar can use her wardrobe as armor -- or as heat-seeking, ego-busting ammunition. Once, when I was a guest on her show, I saw Oprah Winfrey warm up her audience by standing among them in her Chanel finery and asking no one in particular: "Are my panty hose crooked?" Everyone laughed. Of course her panty hose weren't crooked -- she was perfect from head to toe. But that comment knocked her off the Chanel pedestal and into the arms of her fans, a much more ratings-friendly locale. One of my favorite fashion people happens to be a real style tyrant, and for some inexplicable reason, I love her bullying. She has been a fashion editor for several decades and speaks the language like a native. Last summer, when she saw a pink wallet I was carrying, she gasped with pleasure, and then suddenly pushed it away as if it were contaminated. She explained with a frown, "I thought it was an exotic" ...