If it hadn’t have been for that damned clairvoyant this whole calamity could easily have been averted.
She couldn’t help but turn the words over and over in her head as she stood wilting like a spring flower under the bright studio lights.
She was fashion, sometimes beauty, occasionally timepieces.
She was not this.
Hitherto, she had been emphatically cat walk not cat call.
No more it would seem.
The work had dried up, her looks were “very yesterday” her decision not to opt for the knife “very brave”.
She was “too associated with white floral prints and billowing sleeves”.
In short she was “past her prime”.
Even so, when her agent called offering her a game show she had laughed.
“Think of the bottom line” he had uncharacteristically snapped.
She giggled and remembered out loud Catherine Deneuve’s advice that at a certain age a woman “can have the bottom or the face but not both”.
The ten percenter laughed too and suggested that she and her “vast ass” should meet him for drinks.
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She knew that he intended to get her a little drunk and under ever so gentle duress get her to sign.
She knew that saving surgery and even more stringent diets than she had gotten used to in over twenty years of modelling she had no choice.
After all she wanted to keep the house.
So over pink pepper and pineapple bellinis she let him persuade her that it was all in her best interest.
He even invoked the turn of a tarot card, he was in his spare time a camply inept mystic, to convince her of the conviviality of the career move.
“Look” he squealed “it’s number 10. La Roue de la Fortune. That settles it. It’s fate!”
The money was good, the people fun, she would be a co-host and not a “dolly bird”, they would do everything to make the experience as painless as possible.
All of it, apart from how good the money was, was lies.
In reality, here she was, stood next that enormous day glow gargoyle version of a roulette wheel, grinning and gawping and spinning the thing for hours on end a fixed smile on her face and scarcely a word emerging from her lips.
They were taping the fourteenth episode that day, on their fourth audience, before her the thirty second and thirty third contestants.
She had barely sat down.
She felt and was sure she smelt very, very tired indeed.
To make matters worse she was over made up in the television manner to the point that had she strayed into daylight a stranger could have mistaken her for a psychopathic clown.
The theatrical slap they might as well have applied with a trowel smelt cotton candy cheap and her bouffed and coiffed hair resembled nothing more than a vast portion of the same spun sugar.
Still she was faultlessly polite to the all Allens from Arkansas, the DeeDees from Dallas and the Concepcions from Southern California.
She laughed at their over rehearsed ad libs, cheered their triumphs and commiserated their catastrophes resulting from the whim of the wheel or the paucity of their own general knowledge.
She even tolerated the hairspray astringent smell of the lacquer and the saccharine makeup that was even worse on them than on her.
She had her revenge.
When forced to fondle food processors masquerading as precious prizes she balked visibly.
When told to get excited about dinghies with outboard motors attached she always managed somehow to convey her utter disdain.
She arched one eyebrow too high or smiled a little too forcefully so that it came across to the camera as a snarl.
She contorted her remaining curves into shapes that would seem absurd to the audience at home.
If she was going to be made a circus freak, she might as well do it herself and with a sense of fun and a streak of satire.
Of course she knew there was neither the time nor the money for retakes: her little cabaret of discontentment would be played out in homes across the United States every afternoon for the next six months.
It was too late to get a name as big as her for the rest of that season, every ex Miss America so it seemed was already under contract.
They didn’t want her back. Not under any circumstances.
Why should she care? Her agent had after all signed her for three years, no break clause.
She would happily get paid to stay home and tend her irises.
She would be delighted never again to wield that wheel of misfortune.
Dolce&Gabbana’s truly unfortunate Anthologie: 10: Roue de la Fortune is a tackily slick daytime television sort of a scent.
As a perfume it is perfectly undesirable.
Too sweet, too brash, too silly in its cynical attempt to ride then current trends.
It is a self-embarrassing effort to capture a lucrative demographic with a half-hearted stab at white floral with cotton candy and poorly composed patchouli.
It gives off the desperate smell of something that hopes it will scrape through by association with a big name.
Even sadder, somewhere under the ladlefuls of syrup applied to the scent (the notes rather evasively refer only to benzoin) one senses there might actually have been an alluring aroma here once.
It is a fallen top model reduced to syndicated game shows to earn a living: all soft perms, soft focus and sickly maquillage.
Everything about it is sincere only in being utterly synthetic.
As for its inclusion in a nominally limited edition ‘Anthologie’ range?
It possesses all the exclusivity of a Wal-Mart discount bin.
Which, frankly, is where it deserves to be.
On the other hand, no one, man or woman, deserves it.
This is too bad to be even booby prize.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy.
The Perfumed Dandy. 
Nyahahaha! Another well-written review, along with an equally well-written satirical story with a commentary on the combination of mass entertainment and materialism. It brings me back to the time they showed re-runs of “The Price is Right” here many decades ago. It also reminded of that brilliant movie “Quiz Show”.
Dearest Elvin One
Thank you kindly.
I too remember the days when quiz shows from decades ago were repeated in the daytime. The frenzy of yesterday’s fashions, the implausibly miserly prizes, the contestants excited more by the thrill of being on television than the prospect of wining an electric toaster.
There was something tacky yet innocent about such spectacles. Sadly this scent is tacky and cynical.
Not such a sentimentally satisfying combination.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
What is sad to me is that a range of perfumes supposedly inspired by the incomparable and ancient Tarot is so bland, so lackluster, so dumbed down and inspid. What a disapointment! I hate having my interest piqued and my hopes raised only to be dashed. I love your heroine. She has the right spirit. And we’ll always have the truly great fragrances to console ourselves with. Well, maybe not always but as along as they last.
Dearest Lily
I can only agree.
I have been chatting idly recently with friends about themes around which a perfume range could be built… Shakespeare’s plays came up as a favourite and tarot was another.
Then we realised that the cards had been done…. and on the evidence of Roue very badly!
Tell me, are they all such bland commercial unpleasantnesses?
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I’ve only tried two or three, but I can’t remember being particuarly impressed, just…bah. I love the idea of Shakespeare’s plays as a fragrance line! I’ll take Midsummer Night’s Dream. 🙂
Dearest Lily
You must be Titania then, and The Dandy Oberon!!
I wonder what sought of scent it would be? A rose?
Hamlet I have down as a very mossy chypre, Macbeth, The Tempest would need to capture a storm, whilst Anthony and Cleopatra… now that would be some perfume!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Hysterical! Brilliant as always, Mr. Dandy!
Dearest Brie
Why than you!
I only wish the perfume was too, but no, it’s nothing but a bad joke!!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
As Miss Parker is supposed to have remarked, “What fresh hell can this be?” Why, it’s D&G. Personally, I love it when you go ballistic on a scent – thank you!
Dearest V
Dotty P was a woman of many and many wise words, a good deal of them decidedly acid.
To mix my metaphors with opposites, I could have done with a little of her caustic wit when grasping out for my own words to describe my dislike for this irritatingly unctuous (in both senses) and wholly unsuccessful scent.
Pure trash.
I quite like it too when get the chance to vent as generally I am a mild mannered sort of a chap. Honest.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
You think that one is bad. Have you tried the others??
The only one I think is passable is no 11 and it still smells a little cheap.
On the whole I think D and G fragrances are overrated but I quite like their pants !
Dearest Funnyboy
You do bring a wry smile to The Dandy’s eyes!
Mercifully, I haven”t tried the others as I was so off put.
Truly this must be the ‘Prive’ range that the perfumers should have kept private!
The underwear comment is sadly true of Calvin Klein too these days… though as Victoria Wood once remarked of dear M&S “I hear the bottom has fallen out of their pants” (I paraphrase).
Sleep well and better scented than this would ever leave you…
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
A beautiful review, Perfumed Dandy! Sad to say, but this little number was the best of the bunch!
Dearest Shera
Now that is a statement that fills The Dandy with woe… “the best of the bunch”!?!
Crikey the others must have been truly abominable!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
lol, this review is spot on!
And I agree, Fortune is the most acceptable of the Anthologie line. Consider yourself lucky Mr. Dandy it could have been worse. Just think of the watery melon kiwi empress!
Oh well, D&G was such a great house…
Oh My Miss Misty
Confirmation that this is the most preferable perfume from what must truly be a lamentable line!
This would seem to be borne out by that fact that only Roue and…. Imperatrice seem too be available these days.
Yes, I too remember when D&G made a few things worth having, how times have changed!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Hahaha! I’ll take a G, for gag. I think this scent is strong enough to jump off the computer screen – I’m pretty sure I caught a whiff, and you’re right Dandy, it really is atrocious. ;D
Thanks for the laugh, Dandy!
Gripping
Dearest G
Hahaha! Touche!
Isn’t it just awful…!?! And yet dear friends here say it is not the worst from the ‘exclusive’ ‘Anthologie’ range. Now I must pray none of the others get any votes.
I’m particularly keen to avoid the horror that is ‘Imperatrice’.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Dear Mr. Dandy,
Thank you for making me laugh aloud. I will avoid this so-called scent should I ever have the misfortune to come across it.
Dear Ojaddicte
Oh do, do I implore you… it is truly dreadful!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
Heehee, caustic as a tub of Vim Sir Dandy! I dislike everything about D+G – everything airbrushed into grim homogeneity!
Dearest Rose
The Dandy very much agrees with you… that truly awful advertisement was included in the post just because it is soooo bad!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy