“Okay,” I finally said. “Let’s play this scenario out. Your daughter gets on Project Runway. She wins.”
They’re nodding excitedly.
“Then she returns to her junior year in high school. How do you think she’ll feel?”
That question stopped them dead in their tracks. They hadn’t thought that far ahead. I said, “If your daughter is this sensational now, think what a few more years will do for her. Think of how much stronger she will be. She’s only going to get one shot at it. Why not save it up?”
It’s like learning a musical instrument. If you’re thirteen and a classical pianist, think of how much better you will be at eighteen or twenty-one, providing you keep practicing.
The parents seemed disheartened, but those are words to propel you forward rather than to crush your dreams. Isn’t it nice to have things to work for and look forward to, especially if you’re so young?
Stage parents make me crazy. They’re dogged and determined, but it reaches a point where it’s cuckoo. I find it very unsettling.
IT’S EASY TO BLAME parents for bad behavior, but there’s plenty of culpability to go around. Teachers are not totally innocent, either, when it comes to encouraging talented students’ sense of entitlement. Too many of us so overprotect our students that they don’t develop a sense of the logical consequences for their behavior.
A faculty member at Parsons who taught there for many years was in a state of apoplexy because she believed that she had to give a B minus to a student in her Studio Methods (garment construction) class. She asked me to counsel her on how to stomach giving such a low grade to someone she thought had so much promise.
“What are the conditions?” I asked.
“The student hasn’t turned in most of her assignments,” she said. “She hasn’t been to class. But what she has turned in is excellent. She’s extremely talented.”
“She hasn’t been to class? That doesn’t sound like a B minus,” I said. “That sounds like an F.”
“But she’s a good student,” the teacher said. “She communicates with me via e-mail.”
“You need to fail her,” I said. “But I’ll make a deal with you. If you give her an F and she appeals the grade and makes up the missing assignments, I’ll allow you to raise it to a D. But only if she appeals the grade and makes up the work.”
The teacher took my advice and gave the absentee student an F.
As I expected, we never heard from the student. Ever. So the F stood. And we all learned something: The teacher wanted the student to succeed more than the student did.
People send each other messages all the time through their behavior, and the message here was, Fail me. I don’t want to be in school anymore. Instead of admitting that she wanted to get out of fashion, she forced the faculty to make her decision for her. From a faculty member’s point of view, I have this refrain: Why should I want you to succeed more than you do?
PEOPLE WHO ARE USED to having everything done for them don’t often have a strong grasp on how the real world functions. Sometimes it’s infuriating. Other times it’s kind of adorable.
Case in point: One night in 2007 I was at Gen Art’s Fresh Faces in Fashion event. Gen Art is an incredibly valuable organization that supports the work of rising artists and designers. In addition to running myriad events and competitions all over the nation, Gen Art features the work of selected rising fashion designers at an annual event in New York. I was asked to judge the Best in Show, along with Diane von Fürstenberg and others.
Diane and I were there early, though she thought that she was late (“Even when I’m late, I’m early,” she declared). To kill time, we toured the displays in the lobby of the Hammerstein Ballroom (a relic from a bygone era of New York nightlife), which featured the work of rising accessories designers. Cocktails were in abundance. While I declined, Diane gave me reason to believe that she had not.
“I need a hot dog,” she announced to me in her languid voice.
I wondered for a moment if that was a euphemism. Don’t look at me,I thought.
But no, she was speaking literally.
“Why is there no food at these things?” Diane asked me. “They fill you with booze but give you nothing to eat. Do you think there’s a hot-dog vendor on the street? Oh, and I haven’t any money.”
This struck me as a little odd. Remember, this is PrincessDiane von Fürstenberg, now divorced from the prince and married to a member of American royalty, the billionaire Barry Diller. She had a car and driver sitting out front. Surely there were a few dollars in there for tolls and such? But no.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I can treat us each to a hot dog. Let’s see what we can find outside.”
We exited the dusty old ballroom. Diane lunged forward to inform the driver of her shining, bottle-green Bentley that we were going off on a hot-dog mission. I looked around and saw nothing that remotely looked like a vendor’s cart. However, I knew that there was a diner at the corner of Thirty-Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, a nice little dive called the Tick Tock.
We sashayed down the sidewalk, Diane’s arm wrapped around mine. I held the diner door for Diane to enter, and she burst in as if she expected silver trays filled with every kind of hot dog and condiment to greet her. Something told me that she had never been in a place like this before. Sure enough, she didn’t seem to know how diners worked.
While I tried to catch the eye of a waitperson so we could sit down, the famished Diane grew impatient. After sighing heavily, she called out to the rather cavernous space, “I need a hot dog! Someone, anyone, please bring me a hot dog!”
Well, this captured everyone’s attention. Every waitperson and every diner was suddenly staring at us. Imagine how we must have appeared: me in my Tim Gunn outfit and the ever-recognizable Diane von Fürstenberg (no wallflower, she) in all of her stunning regalia.
An amused waitress approached and led us to a booth just to the right of the entrance while Diane kept repeating, “I don’t need to sit. I just need a hot dog.”
“Well, let’s sit for a minute,” I cajoled, winking at the waitress. “Maybe you’d like some french fries as well.”
“Oh, yes, that would be nice,” she said, and smiled with a look that suggested she could smell them, “and some onion rings, too!”
Onion rings? Maybe she had been in a place like this before.
“Oh, and some pickles!” she called after the waitress.
Pickles? I began to suspect DvF was a diner junkie.
Diane’s energy was low, I could tell. She has a languorous look that I find extremely sexy, but in this case it looked more like a low blood sugar haze. I asked the waitress if she could bring whatever food was ready first as soon as possible. She obliged by bringing the pickles right away. Diane began to perk up as soon as she took a bite.
We talked and laughed and when the hot dogs, french fries, and onion rings arrived (quite speedily!), Diane had two bites of the hot dog, a couple of French fries, and then didn’t even touch the onion rings.
When we got up to leave, the people in the next booth leaped to their feet and asked whether they could take a picture with us. I’m always game and was about to oblige, but Diane stepped in and held her hand up.
“I’m sorry, darlings,” she purred, “but we’re late for an event where we’re both needed very badly. We don’t have time for a picture, but here, have some onion rings!” And she handed her stunned fan the basket.
I’m not sure what the moral is here … I really just wanted to tell that story. But maybe it’s that declaring to a room full of strangers, “I need a hot dog!” won’t get you what you want no matter who you are, unless you follow protocol and sit down and order like a regular person.