Truthfully, I’ve always been a bit of a fashion snob. Gift giving holidays when I was a child consisted of family members purchasing and lovingly wrapping dresses, vests and all sorts of clothing that proper little girls should be wearing. When I would open the packages I would respond with wrinkled faces and a promise to wear the garments at some point. I insisted on trying dresses on over my jeans when shopping for picture day outfits and generally being a pain in the ass to my family members.

In high school I was a big fan of white or silver eyeliner, wearing rings on all of my fingers and having no less than three pounds of jewelry adorning my body at any given time. Now my wardrobe (and jewelry addiction) has tamed considerably. While I still wear jeans and tshirts most days, that is mostly out of necessity as I don’t have the infinite monetary supplies to expand my wardrobe.

Anyway, none of that really matters. What I meant to say is that I just purchased Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You by Simon Doonan recently and I am in love with it. Allow me to share some of my favorite parts:

Eccentric glamour!
Create it. Grab it. Feel it. Be it, and do so knowing that, even if you walk down the street wearing a gold leotard with your lesbian aunt Sylvia’s mauve nylon fanny pack cinching your midriff, nobody is judging you. Some people may not even notice you. Most people will be enjoying you.

Before you make any purchase–big or small–take a moment to consider the meaning and significance of what you are buying.

“I once wore a pair of jeans and sneakers on the subway and never did that again because of how approachable and vulnerable that suddenly made me. A dash of eccentric glamour gives you the power to keep the wrong kind of men away.” — Isabel Toledo

Eccentricity, that vigorous aversion to preconceived ideas and bourgeois notions, is the oxygen that invigorates a happy and creative life.

And my favorite section of fashion related advice in the book so far, because I absolutely agree with this philosophy towards aging…

‘Til Death You and Your Lipstick Doth Part
Let’s end with a universal tip for Existentialists, Socialites, Gypsies and all combinations thereof:
Your thirtieth birthday is an important landmark. You are now ready, after ten years of dicking around with your personal style, to select a signature lipstick. This is the lip color that will be with you through thick and thin.
When you are screaming for mercy during childbirth, this is the lipstick that will be smeared across your face.
When you kiss the corpses of your dead parents, this is the lipstick that will stain their cheeks.
If, God forbid, you ever get arrested for drunk driving, this is the pigment that will leave a pretty residue on the Breathalyzer nozzle.
This is the lipstick that will flow into the fine lines and wrinkles around your mouth as the death rattle grips your throat.
Choosing this lipstick is therefore a momentous task.
In order to complete it, you need to be slightly drunk.
After a Cosmo or two, head to your local beauty counter and start trying out the lipsticks on your hand. Just for kicks why not ask if any of the lipsticks has won a Nobel Prize? Don’t expect to have some kind of epiphany when you find “the right one.” Your selection should be, within reason, fairly arbitrary. If it has a great name–Catfight (Nars), Shashimi Mimi (MAC), or Pink Ballerina (Chanel)–and it doesn’t make you look too hideous, then that’s probably good enough. It’s just important that you pick one and stick with it.
When you have made your choice, buy a total of three hunder and sixty lipsticks. (The alcohol helps numb the pain of having to cough up all that dough.) This stash will last you the next sixty years. Yes, Einstein, that’s six per year.
That crate of lipsticks, lurking in your closet, will never let you forget that the clock is ticking and that life is for living. Every time you extract a new one and propel it toward your naturally aging mouth, you will think of the pointlessness of trying to hold back the sands of time. That diminishing lipstick stash will be a constant and salutary reminder not to waste time dating crappy men, watching lousy television, working dreary jobs, or worrying about the appearance of your fine lines and wrinkles.
Have a nice life!