In the next few weeks, you may receive a telephone call from someone making two claims: 1. He or she is a television producer; and 2. You look like shit.
Well, don't be offended. This was no cold call: Your close friends or relatives told the TV producer how abysmally you dress (On second thought, how does that make things better? Be offended!). In an eye-catching ad posted on Craigslist, the producers of the Learning Channel's What Not to Wear have apparently asked San Franciscans to snitch on friends and relatives who qualify as "fashion disasters."
Philip Liborio Gangi
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For those unfamiliar with the show, here's the plotline in a nutshell: A very hot woman and a very gay man jeer the awful sartorial sense of some poor schlub, buy him or her a boatload of new clothes, and everyone walks away happy. San Francisco's "fashion disasters" are promised "$5,000 in clothing and accessories, a trip to New York City, and a complete hair and style makeover."
What Not to Wear is hunting for several species of awful dressers in San Francisco, including "Hippie Chicks" (not a problem) and "Beach babe who tends to dress in beachwear ALL the time" (check the emergency room; she's probably suffering from hypothermia). For those whose style transcends the bounds of human decency in an unquantifiable fashion, open nominations are accepted.
Here are SF Weekly's suggestions:
The San Francisco Twins
Category: Stuck in the '70s
You could say San Francisco's iconic matching twins Marian and Vivian Brown are stuck in the '70s, alright — the 1870s.
Adam Duritz
Category: White guys with dreads
Okay, so this isn't one of the official categories, but it totally should be. God, is there a worse hairstyle? (A dreadlock mullet would be worse, but we've never actually spotted one of those.) Duritz, the Counting Crows singer, is the most conspicuous local white guy with dreads, but let us assure What Not to Wear producers that there are plenty more where he came from in these parts — at least when they're not all in the desert at Burning Man for two weeks. If any readers happen to bump into Duritz at a Cal game, ask him a question for us: Who is he trying to look like, Sideshow Mel or Sideshow Bob?
Marjorie Knoller
Category: Just out of jail
Why the hangdog look, Marjorie? The San Francisco woman whose giant dogs killed a neighbor in 2001 could sure use a makeover. Her adopted son, Paul "Cornfed" Schneider of the Aryan Brotherhood, would prefer an all-white ensemble, naturally.
John Cota
Category: Open nomination
A polyester wardrobe would be fitting for the pilot of the Cosco Busan, the ship that crashed into the Bay Bridge last year. The fabric is petroleum-based and now, thanks to Cota, so is the bay.
Don Nelson
Category: Open nomination
The Warriors coach is stinkin' rich and can afford nice suits. Actually, his suits are nice — in theory. It's just that once he actually puts them on, they accentuate his worst feature, a beer belly that looks as if he's expecting to deliver a precious baby Spalding any day now.
Medea Benjamin
Category: Makes their own clothes
We like that she wears pink a lot. Very feminine. But does she always have to ruin her shirts by writing stuff like "No War" all over them? One simple way to improve Benjamin's wardrobe would be to confiscate all Sharpies and Magic Markers in her possession. (Oh, and we have one other request for the What Not to Wear producers: See if you can do something about the shouting. She's a screamer.)
Wavy Gravy
Category: Hippie who needs to get into the 21st century
He hasn't changed his clothes since Woodstock. 'Nuff said.
Dianne Feinstein
Category: Supermodel wannabe
Pity DiFi's hairstylist. The senator's hair is an incorrigibly thick mass that cannot be tamed, even by Aqua Net Super Hold. As for Feinstein's clothes — well, we'll just quote former Mayor Willie Brown's new memoir: "She simply doesn't have the clothes mentality. While she never looks sloppy, she sometimes looks hit or miss, as if she were caught between seasons."
Lesbians
Category: Biker babes (?)
We're assuming this whole category was code for "lesbians." We won't single out anyone for you — badly dressed lesbians aren't hard to find around here, although you'll have more luck across the bay with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. We're told there are some Oakland dykes who own nothing but old jeans, fleece, white T-shirts, and, for very special occasions, black vests to wear over the white T-shirts.
Homeless Guy
Category: Makes their own clothes
Hey, here's an idea: Instead of taking one homeless person to New York and giving him or her $5,000, why doesn't TLC make Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius happy by taking five thousand homeless people to New York and giving each one a dollar?
