Fashio Eulogy

"Seriously? He choked to death on a cocktail onion, in a room with all of those people?," said Diana.

"Hundreds of people there. Most of them just watched, and some people pretended nothing was happening." Natalia looked at the olive in her own martini, and couldn't imagine that it might possess lethal qualities. Still, just to be sure, she wouldn't eat it. She vowed to never eat another olive or cocktail onion again.

"He was... he was becoming a legend. He was at the top of his career. Just before he... choked, there was an enormous crowd of people around him, telling him how amazing his show was. Then when he... couldn't breathe, they all kind of slunk back, super-fast. Then a couple of the waitstaff picked him up and carried him out, and everyone started talking again like nothing happened. It was like they'd just seen boring performance art. All of the sudden, he hadn't just put on the most stunning show of Fashion Week- he'd committed a faux pas. "

Diana leaned in, and murmured, "I heard that Fereziano waited about two minutes before he started moving in on his top designers."

Natalia smirked. "He has been accused of being ambitious, you know."

"Nooooo!" Diana exclaimed, with mock surprise.

"True!" said Natalia. "Fereziano called me today to book me for an editorial spread. I said no. As far as I'm concerned, he's a ghoul."

"They're all ghouls," muttered Diana. "But at least Fereziano lets you keep the clothes. Once he even changed my plane ticket so I could stay at the Maui photo shoot. He even let me keep my suite at the Hilton- charged it to Mademoiselle."

"So- what did he want in return?"

"Ha. What else? I put him off, and then he was called back for a last-minute assignment for Vanity Fair. He didn't hold it against me."

"What a swell guy," murmured Natalia. "They try, just because they can."