Wretched Excess

I've been having a love-hate relationship with Vogue magazine for some time now. They're often unrealistic ("Rinse your blonde child's hair in champagne") or wildly impractical ($3,000 for a pair of boots?)

Occasionally they do run an interesting story about a rich, white woman (American or English) and "Her World." Every month there's an Auntie Agony column called "Up Front." June: "Battles of the Heart - While her husband was reporting in Iraq, Anna Menendez received a letter that sent her marriage into turmoil." (Doh. He was cheating on her!)

Always there is an article on unlikey beauty treatments (all requiring vast sums of money.) This time? Skin-tightening lasers and fat-dissolving ultrasound! All in the quest for Eternal Youth which is really quite shallow when you think about it.

But "Last Look" (last page) is what's got me scrambling to cancel my subscription. There's a full page photo of a bicycle. As it is the June issue, it is suggested that the groom buy it for the new bride. Read along with me ...

"The Abici Amante Donna city bike now comes fitted with Fendi's luxest (Ed. say what?) Selleria leather accessories. Seat, handles, thermos case and GPS HOLDER are all cut and sewn by hand. The fully-outfitted picnic basket/make-up case bears the house's signature stamp" (a horse.)

I would question the need for a GPS on a city bike. I laughed out loud at the leather-etched drawing of a horse on the basked-- on a bicycle!

The Fendi Abici bike is $5,900 and the detachable case (which looks like an old trunk -- wonderfully unwieldy on a balance-necessary item like a bike) is $975. Thus $6,875 for something that won't last on the streets of New York for longer than it takes you to swing a leg over it.

Impractical to the nth degree. Goodbye, Vogue; it's been real. Er, no, it hasn't.