THE BRIT LOOK We accidentally went to www.britneyspears.com, the new official Britney site that is still under construction. Not much there, but we could not help ourselves from clicking on the Britney store. Not much there, either, except for a couple of CDs and DVDs … and her fragrances: Fantasy, Curious, and In Control. Sounds like a personals ad. What kind of name is In Control for a fragrance? Especially when it’s being touted by someone who is so very clearly not in control? Can you imagine smelling like you’re In Control? What does that smell like? What we didn’t see for sale were any of the hat-and-wig combos that she’s been sporting lately. Frankly, the look is so fresh and charming that we’re surprised it hasn’t yet swept the nation, especially Austin, which often embraces unusual looks. Oh, wait. Maybe it has.
THE DISH NETWORK Since we were not invited to a certain über-private social powerhouse’s Saturday night birthday party at the Belmont (for which Prince was flown in to perform), we were forced to don a black veil and quietly leave town. The lucky bastards who did go said it was PFF (Pretty F*ckin’ Fabulous) and decked-out to death. Loved hearing the perhaps apocryphal rumor of a certain newspaper writer’s being whisked off and ordered to not publish a word of it. Obviously, it wasn’t me… So we wore our widow’s weeds to Houston and drowned our sorrows at the grand opening of too-chic-to-live Hotel ZaZa – along with about 3,000 carefully screened close friends. (OK, maybe we only knew a handful of them, but we have hands like King Kong.) There was a large Austin-Houston crossover contingent, so when we did wind up knee-walking drunk, we did it in the privacy of our own room with only about 12 witnesses. We considered visiting some clubs while we were there, but they all looked like the kinds of clubs where you suspect there’s a waxing booth in the bathroom so everyone can have all their body hair removed. We were waaay too impaired to put up with that… Did a double take the next day driving through Houston and passing a street named after Anita Weiner. Who is Anita Weiner? Sounds like a drag name or a porn star… Sadly, FactoryPeople is closing its doors. The store began the more upscale swing on SoCo, which has clearly taken hold with newcomers such as Cissi’s Market, Mars, and Anne Kelso. What will go into the FactoryPeople space next? A caviar bar? Tiffany’s?
This article appears in June 8 • 2007.