When You Wish Upon a Fire Hydrant

For the last few weeks, I've been telling my friends about the fulfillment of a wish I've had for a long time. The response to the fulfillment of said wish has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, so I thought I'd share.

In some ways, it's kind of a silly wish -- not a deep wish or a better-the-world wish or even an impossibly-impossible-but-fun-to-wish wish. It's a rather simple wish: to have a personal shopper at Saks Fifth Avenue.

I'll be the first to confess that I have not exactly regained my pre-pregnancy figure. The women of my family tend to be shaped like buxom fire hydrants, and mommyhood has definitely nudged me a little bit in that direction. I haven't thrown in the towel -- I continue to entertain the somewhat pie-in-the-sky hope that my size 6 days aren't entirely behind me -- but I hate the idea of becoming one of those people who dresses schlubbily because they refuse to spend any money on clothing unless they can purchase it in their dream size. So, armed with the conviction that I would buy whatever looked good on me regardless of what size was listed on the tag, off I marched into Saks to drop some cash on a new wardrobe.

The flagship Saks store -- whose location on Fifth Avenue I trust will surprise no one -- is an impressive but overwhelming extravanaganza of clothing goodness. Unlike Bloomingdale's and many other department stores, Saks is pretty much nothing more than a shrine to Things That Go On One's Body. None of this "housewares on 6, linens on 7" business, although there is a bit of a giftware section on maybe an eighth of one floor. Just makeup and accessories on 1 followed by many many floors of clothing, organized by designer and generally grouped by level of schmancyness. I like to shop, but I find Saks to be something of a shopping catacomb. Without an experienced guide, all is lost.

Enter the personal shopper.

The PS and I meet in her office. She's stylish and well-put-together, but not a goddess. That's reassuring -- who wants to be taught introductory physics by Albert Einstein? We chat for a few minutes about who I am, what I'm looking for, how I normally dress. I'm wearing black pants and a sweater that I think is rather cute. She looks me over and says that the project will be to create outfits that won't look like I just yanked pants and a top out of the closet and threw them on together. (Um, isn't that the whole point of black pants, I wonder, but keep my thoughts to myself.) She praises me for having regained my pre-baby figure and recommends that I start wearing some sort of minimizer because that particular asset doesn't really need any more emphasis than it demands on its own. (I told you -- buxom fire hydrants!)

And then off we go into the wild Saks yonder.

The PS bobs and weaves through the many many aisles of clothes, pulling jackets and pants and skirts and tops off the racks, holding them up to me for color, discarding some, keeping others, shouting sizes to her assistant (a chic Russian woman with funky glasses who seems unfazed by all of the data the PS throws in her direction), tossing a mountain of clothing over her shoulder. We do one floor at a time -- at the end of each floor, another assistant materializes who totes that floor's haul back to the PS's office. She leaves me in the kind care of a man in the shoe department with 20 pairs of shoes to try on for size while she finishes perusing every item of clothing in Saks. We meet back in her office two hours after we started, where three racks of clothing await us.

Then I try everything on. Many things don't fit, and Chic Russian Assistant dashes back to the floor to switch sizes for me, often before I've even removed the ill-fitting item. Some things look fantastic, some look terrible. I'm surprised by some of the things that look great -- jackets that I would never have given a second look on my own, pants that should look like every other pair of pants I own but somehow lie a little bit differently and more flatteringly. Within another hour, we've assembled an array of jackets, pants, skirts, tops, and shoes that can all be interchanged -- and that are all fabulous.

Everyone then decides I need a little quiet time before finalizing what I'm actually going to buy. The PS heads back out to the floor to pick up a few more odds and ends, and Chic Russian Assistant fetches me a turkey sandwich and fruit salad. When the PS returns, she hands me a list she's drawn up of all of the outfits that can be created out of the various items of clothing. Literally everything can be worn with everything else. It's quite impressive. Then we start to cut things out. The PS exerts no pressure -- if I say something is out, she removes it from the rack. I eliminate a number of the little shirts to be worn under various jackets -- I may be a Saks girl now, but I don't need a $300 blue silk knit t-shirt when I can buy a $30 Banana Republic t-shirt in the same color blue. I go back and forth on a particular brown skirt, which is the most expensive item in the lot -- ultimately I decide to buy it because it's just so gorgeous, and decide that if I vow to wear it once a week, I'll amortize the cost down to mere pennies in no time flat. Something of a rationalization, but it's a really great skirt.

Ultimately I make the final decisions. Four jackets, two pairs of pants, one pair of jeans, two skirts, one very nifty dressy blouse, one sweater, one shell, and two pairs of shoes. A successful shopping day for everyone. Saks, me -- everyone wins!

Then the fitter is summoned to the room. She pins everything. Shortens sleeves, shortens pant legs, narrows waists and upper arms. I had also brought with me a suit I'd bought at an outlet a few months ago on the theory that it could be altered into something wonderful -- she transforms the jacket from full-length sleeves to three-quarter length sleeves, narrows the entire torso, and reconfigures the pants. A mere (!) 5 hours after my arrival at Saks, I leave with a large credit card bill, a huge smile on my face, and no clothes -- everything is being altered and shipped. Two weeks later I have everything.

I'm now in my second week of my new wardrobe. Admittedly, I don't work in an atmosphere where one's clothing is particularly relevant (it's a group of traders, not exactly known for their fashionistaness), but I feel great in my lovely new array of stuff. And I no longer feel like the frumpomommy with the beautifully dressed toddler -- an awkward thing to feel like here in Manhattan where one runs into Uma Thurman and various Uma Thurman lookalikes in Central Park, impeccably turned out with their equally impeccable kidlets in tow. I mean, I'm still a fire hydrant and all, but at least I'm a cute fire hydrant.

Now, of course, I'm looking at the rest of my closet with a critical eye. I suspect it's the case that once you go PS, you can never go back. But really, who wants to go back?