Today I am celebrating my first full day of being forty-eight.

See, it’s not that I screwed up yesterday (which I mentioned was my birthday, right?). It’s just that I wanted to save a certain strapless, bedazzled Ed Hardy dress for a Very Special Occasion.

You know, like the day after my birthday.

(Just go with it.)

For a while there, Ed Hardy (a tattoo artist who licensed his work to designers like Christian Audigier) was everyfuckingwhere you looked. I mean, who didn’t have at least one BORN TO RAISE HELL or LOVE KILLS SLOWLY skull/heart/rose/tattoo t-shirt in the regular rotation in 2002?

Nobody who was cool, that’s who.

Well, if there was anything Ed seemed to love as much as skulls, hearts, roses, and his own name put together, it was tigers.

I got the eye of the tiger.

Knowing what you know about my bling-addiction and my general disdain for straps, I would like you to close your eyes and picture me SQUEALING WITH GLEE when I stumbled across this little number.

Rawr.

I mean, what’s not to love? You don’t just get the tiger face; you get the whole goddamned Panthera Tigris body. You’ve got your rhinestones… you’ve got your rose… you’ve got your strapless top-with-a-twist… and just in case anyone tries to accuse you of sporting one of those made-in-China eBay Ed Hardy knockoffs YOU KNOW THEY’RE OUT THERE, you’ve got Ed’s very own signature scrawled across the bottom in exquisite, factory-crafted genuine diamelles*.

*You guys remember those commercials from the ’70s, right?

Yup, I wore this. Like, in earnest originally and later to a Vegas themed party, which reminded me that I actually have a picture of me in Vegas with Sigfried or Roy (I have no idea which one is which, but it was the one who looks like Barry Manilow) and I just spent 40 minutes trying to find it but obviously the housekeepers stole it because it’s not here. 🙁

Anyway, here’s the truth: I still think I might wear this dress again someday. Before you mock me famous fashion editor friends, two years ago, the internet said we could be poised for an Ed Hardy comeback. I quote: “Ed Hardy is the Con Air of menswear. The clothes are, for the most part, ugly. Like, really ugly. They are to the eyes what Axe Body Spray is to the nose. Still, the brand hasn’t been cool for so long that there’s a certain ironic distance that can be drawn between its heyday and now.”

What I think the author is saying is that I can wear it, right now, today if I feel like, as long as I do it in a totally ironic way. Maybe I could start the comeback.

Think about Diane Von Furstenberg, or Tommy Hilfiger, or Betsey Johnson or every fanny pack ever made. All of these things had gone through a period of being about as chic as pleated polyester pants before staging epic comebacks. Imagine how cool your kids would think you were if you’d held onto an original DVF wrap dress from the first time around, or had one of Betsey’s original corset dresses. YOU GUYS, right now on eBay, someone is hawking two Ed Hardy t-shirts for almost TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. If you have forty-three thousand, this guy will sell you his sterling silver EH chess set (but please note you’ll only get the pieces; the board is sold separately WTF?).

OBVIOUSLY I’m keeping this one in my closet in the Halloween tub, and obviously you’re going to have to take a number when you want to borrow it, so please plan ahead.

XO
Jenna

PS Can we talk about fanny packs for a second? I want to know who came up with that name. I mean, who was even still saying “fanny” in the eighties? I can see how butt pack and ass pack might conjure up some pretty disturbing images, but what about waist pack? Belt pack? Lower-belly-pooch-pack? Midriff pocketbook for Christ’s sake. There were options, is all I’m saying.