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I spent this 4th of July weekend in the Hamptons at an 8 bedroom “house” that a friend rented for the month (apparently the owner of the place is President of Capitol Records — he was there the first night, but didn’t go out with us because he had to go sign Lenny Kravitz… ridiculous, no?).

Upon arriving 5 hours later than planned, three pasty-white city girls stumble into a house full of tall, thin, exotic beauties from Miami.  Inferiority complex?  Just a bit.  They were all very nice, it was just startling and unexpected.  Plus, I do much better in a room full of men than women.  Big groups of chicks are intimidating in themselves.  Which is one of the many reasons I’m glad that I wasn’t born with a penis; it’s better to be part of the flock of wolves that try to circumvent it.

So after securing a bedroom and lounging poolside for the rest of the afternoon, we got ourselves together and headed to Trata* where my friend’s boyfriend is a bartender.  The scene was as follows: blond, botoxed, middle-aged women dressed like 18 year olds clutching their designer bags and towering on $500 heels.  Labels were abundant.  It was a restaurant full of this.  It was terrifying.  And it was a reality check.

The next day we prowled around Sag Harbor where two girls gave us the card in the photograph above.  The name of the store they were promoting made me laugh.  The Hamptons really are about labels.  Even during the day in this little beach town there was enough Lacoste and J. Crew to make my closet full of Urban Outfitters and thrift duds throw up a little bit.

Best part of the trip?  A guy asked my friend for her number to show her a good time the next time she was in town.  This is the dialogue that ensued:

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Oh no?  Why is that?”

“It’s not really my scene.  These people are on another planet.”

“I used to not like it either, but you just have to ignore them… blah blah blah lots of talk about how great the Hamptons are… it gets better.”

“When does it get better?  After you become one of them?”

Basically I realized that yes, I do want to make a shitload of money (who doesn’t?), but there is no way I will ever become part of that crowd.  Though they make a statment - a very extravagant statement - designer labels aren’t something that I ever want to be commonplace in my life.  Fashion isn’t about having THE thousand dollar dress.  It’s about creativity: taking expensive things, cheap things, new things, and old things and making yourself look good.  At least that’s how I see it.

*I would like to note that the food and drinks at Trata are amazing.  If you go early (7 or so), you can miss the Hamptonite crowd and enjoy an amazing Greek dinner.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Annoyances, Conversations, Photography, iEat, iPlay, iShop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.