In the Temple of the Automatic Markdown

[cathyj]

On the way home from Chinatown, I stopped in Filene's Basement. Sometimes I feel I'm living a Bloomsian nightmare of belatedness (I'm bullshitting you, I've never read any Harold Bloom), in which I perpetually move to towns five years too late. Shortly after I got to Austin, the Bazaar became Finagle a Bagel; not long after my arrival in Boston, Deli Haus (now available online as a lonely unemployed restaurant) withered on the vine, as did most of the places to get a cheap breakfast, including IHOP for Christ's sake. (And by the way, He is risen, as mistersmearcase is surely glad to know-or will be as soon as Swamp Rat gets home from church. Struggling to get a handle on the timeline here, I said to a Scottish co-worker, "He died on Thursday . . . What did he do on Friday?" The Scot said, "He went out for a fish supper." Actually, Swamp Rat told me he died on Friday, and on Thursday he just had the Last Supper and hung around Gethsemane, which I was surprised to learn is pronounced to rhyme with "Yosemite." But I digress.) Also among the late lamented in Boston are:

• Transitions in the South End.
• Family Thrift in Quincy.
• Victor Hugo of sainted memory.
• Brigham's.
• Half of Chinatown.
• Most of Central Square.
• The Cheri and Copley theaters, and also the Nickelodeon.
• And don't get me started on Harvard Square.

As they said in The Outsiders, nothing gold can stay. I mean, it just kills me about Scollay Square, and I wasn't even alive back then.

But we still have Filene's Basement. I heard something recently about plans to change the automatic markdown system, so maybe the slow erosion of authenticity has begun (I know-who'm I kidding, begun?), but right now FB is still going gangbusters. Today I found I had wandered into a Special Designer Event, which turned out to be very important to my personal growth. I have long held that, should I become a millionaire, I would wear only head-to-toe Prada. However, the Special Designer Event has set me right, and I now know that come that happy day, I will not be dressed in Prada at all but in:
Marc Jacobs,
Miu Miu,
and
Moschino Cheap & Chic.
Yes! I was surprised by that last one, too! But there was plenty Cheap & Chic on view in the Designer Vault, and it was mad witty and totally fabulous. Moving outward from the Vault, the clothes got cheaper but did not disappoint. I don't know how accurately the stock in Filene's Basement reflects current trends, but if the clever and whimsical skirts I saw are any indication, I think it's going to be a great spring. There was lots of playing about with fabrics like tweed, pinstripe and denim, and with bias cuts, grosgrain ribbon, visible stitching, and screaming bright colors. Best of all, there were kick pleats-a lot of kick pleats.

The Moschino stuff was awesome. They had (ha! I almost said "showed")

• a brown dress that was covered with visual puns: dashed lines and stitches and outlines of pockets (it said "Ceçi n'est pas couture" on the back);
• a pink skirt with knife pleats attached with bejeweled safety pins around the bottom;
• short, wide skirts made of curtain-like fabric with huge colored flowers.

I bought a baby-blue corduroy skirt with blue lace trim peeking out underneath, from a company called Mac & Jac. It retailed for sixty-three dollars and I got it for five.