Dollars? A thousand dollars?! That’s more than my rent! Like, a lot more! Maybe you’ve noticed that I live with two dudes and sleep in an Ikea twin bed. Or has living in a world of luxury for so long left you unable to recognize the signature lines and craftsmanship of the Malm collection? (For context: my stylist was earning more to dress me for Up in the Air–related events than I did for making the actual movie.) There was a feeling from the people around me at that time that although I hadn’t made much money yet, things were about to start going so well that huge checks were right around the corner! I should spend whatever I had to, even if it seemed imprudent, because I’d have tons of money in just a few months! I’m glad I was such a tightfisted bitch, because the money didn’t follow for about two years. In fact, Twilight was the only thing keeping me above water. I’ve said in the past that without that series I would have been evicted, and people think I’m joking. Nope. Me and my Oscar nom would have been living in my car. Which is a charming story now, but at the time, I did not find it funny.
The shoe situation, though, seemed like a necessary evil. Apparently, I was now trying to convince the world that I was a movie star, and movie stars had companies like Louboutin begging them to wear their shoes! And to pretend that that was happening, I would have to buy a pair. I paid a thousand dollars to trick people into thinking I got free shoes.
I wore the shoes in Toronto with my awesome and inexplicable Marchesa dress. No one seemed to care one way or the other about what was on my feet, but maybe it’s one of those “you only notice it if it’s Aldo” kind of things. I still have those shoes. I don’t think I’ve worn them since. If they go out of style, or I join a cult that eschews material goods, or if both my feet are eaten off by the army of cats I’ll eventually own, I’ll never get rid of those shoes. Yes, it’s the ultimate irony that I can now afford a pair of shoes like that, but designers let me borrow them for free. When you think about it, all these celebrities are borrowing shoes that have been worn by someone else before them. Like bowling shoes. So the joke’s on us.
Yep. Two inanimate objects. Truly the stuff of nightmares.
That story makes my stylist sound crazy, which she wasn’t; she was just used to the fashion world. I’d encountered this behavior before when I did a photo shoot for Teen Vogue with the cast of Rocket Science. I loved the shoes they put me in, and the magazine’s stylist said, “Oh, they’re actually from that designer’s diffusion line, so they’re not that expensive—I think they’re like six or seven hundred.” Cool. That’s when I started cutting the labels out of the clothes I wore to fashion shoots, lest they see an Old Navy tag as I undress and kick me out of their studio.
A Good Sport
A few nights before the Oscars I was invited to a party thrown by Louis Vuitton. When a fashion house throws a party, they send clothing options to the invitees so that no one shows up in Chanel and rips apart the space-time continuum. My stylist was beaming as she showed me a beautiful white coat and a pleated tartan minidress. I put it on and immediately said, “Oh my god, it’s like a high-end slutty schoolgirl costume. It’s fucking amazing.” It was weird but it was cool and I liked it. I looked like a luxury tramp and it was a nice change of pace from what I’d been wearing during all the Oscars press. When I got to the party and started to take off my coat, the woman next to me looked at my dress and said, “Is that what they sent you to wear? Aw. You’re a good sport.”
I put down my drink; I needed both hands to tie my coat back up tight enough that it wouldn’t show a square centimeter of my dress. I spent the rest of the night readjusting my collar higher on my neck, and only when the house photographer stopped me in the hallway on my way out did I take the coat off, praying that no one would pass by.
All the photos that ran in fashionland the next day were of me in a voluminous white coat. I met with my stylist to look at Oscar dresses and said, “Oh man, you won’t believe what I did last night.”
“No, I saw.” She was a little terse.
“Right . . . It’s just that this woman, like, said I was a ‘good sport’ for wearing the dress, and it felt like a dig and—”
“She said that? She saw what you were wearing and felt moved to say something passive-aggressive to you?”
“Yeah, basically.”
“Wow,” she said with a smirk. “She felt so provoked by a fucking dress that she took a swipe at you. That’s pathetic. Man, if you’re messing up someone’s day with what you’re wearing, you’re doing something right.”
I liked that. That even someone from the fashion world was like, Dude, it’s just fashion. It’s supposed to be fun.
No one had prepared me for this part. I didn’t know I was going to have to learn about fashion. I thought I knew plenty about fashion. I knew gowns were more formal than short dresses, skirts were more formal than pants, and leaving the house in just socks and a sports bra would get you arrested. Now you’re telling me there’s more to fashion than finding a dress that shows enough boob to distract from your face?