The anatomy of a Starbucks fashion disaster

There's a walking fashion disaster happening right in front of me.

This is what happens when country comes to town.

First, the purse is plenty enough of a *statement* on its own. Enormous fake zebra stripes - real zebras would kill for this kind of pattern definition. Red faux leather bottom. Hmm. Maybe even real. This thing is *gorgeous* - the combination of red, black and white doesn't look at all like "Murder in the Rue Ze-braaa" - it is striking. Probably a first-rate European knockoff - or maybe even a top-quality store brand. All downhill from there.

This fabulous handbag is swinging from the arm of a dowdy twentysomething in black tights and a satin floral miniskirt that looks like it should be on the walls of an English country house. An English country house in 1724. Pale blue, ice blue in fact, with a scene of trees and roses and hounds. Are we ill yet? Send in the hounds!

Because there's MORE.

What I mistook for black tights is in fact either a leotard or a bodysuit, because it continues its formfitting path upward and over the hills and valleys of a woman's domain. It clings to her - literally, because it is a couple sizes too small. Ladies can get away with that below the belt, but it don't looks so good on the top half.

Over this, presumably to ward off the chill, she's decided to thrown on the top to a sweatsuit in a dirty aqua color. Well, maybe that's being charitable. It was originally something in aquamarine velour - and now it is just dirty.

There are drop earrings - inch-long gold wire drops with a little holder at the end and a black stone nestled inside. The feet you ask? Ballet flats. Pink satin ballet flats.

And the hair. Ye gods, the hair. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all. She's had it done at a tres chic salon in whatever flyover red-state backwater she's from (more on that in a minute) and it looks *good* - shoulder-length, a thousand different shades of brown and blonde and even a few black and red highlights and it is swept up off her head to reveal some pretty good skin. Nature has blessed this child with a nice, thick mane of hair that horses would weep over. Even now, Lady Gaga is plotting to sneak in and cut off a few locks to send off to her secret laboratory of wig scientists.

Only, she's decided to cap the entire look with a Carrie Bradshaw-style fascinator. In this case, an enormous black butterfly fashioned from a couple of ostrich feathers. It rides the air currents above her head like some mordant moth, gazing, watching, waiting, twisting and turning, waiting to strike down all those who displease its most fashionable mistress.

This poor child. THIS POOR CHILD.

Her daddy, for he could be no other thing, rolled in wearing some weatherbeaten dungarees, clodhoppers with the honest dirt of Midwestern toil still clinging to them and an enormous green and teal plaid shirt purchased at something with a Mart in its name. Mommy had on a neat pink and tan pants suit she got on sale at the Dillards, worn over long johns and under a sensible cardigan. Mommy also had a fanny pack and a water bottle on a strap. Her younger brother, who never once looked up from his Nintendo DS, had on khakis and a red and white polo. And an enormous fluffy camouflage jacket. The flyover states picked the wrong time to visit sunny Florida.

This poor child. She's got about seventy fashion ideas screaming at her - all at once - TV, movies, magazines, peers - and she literally doesn't know what to do. I literally do not know what the influence for this is - unless some sort of demented demon told her "this is how you're going to land your school's version of Chuck Bass." That's a scary thought. Because you know, I could sort of see that outfit slapping down the street on an episode of "Gossip Girl." Help me!

Instead of trying to develop one particular style - she just throws it all into the blender and gets something that looks like a Goodwill donation box after a battle royale between drag queens armed with hot glue guns and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen armed only with the force of his foppish personality - and seventeen yards of chintz.

Please honey, if you're out there, if you're listening, PICK A STYLE ICON, say Marlene Dietrich, and copy her. Or pick a period, say the 1960s, and work that for a while. Don't go for the velour English country house fascinator bodysuit look unless you're ABSOLUTELY sure you can pull it off - and darling, I really don't think you're about to pull this one off.

Cheers for trying though. Major props.

PS: That zebra purse was FIERCE!