Dina Manzo, like Marilyn Monroe before her, just loves finding new places to wear diamonds.

The Bloggomist: Acorn & Oak Tree
Fashion Opinion

Forgive me for becoming the Jerry Seinfeld of fashion writing for a moment, but honestly, what is the deal with the current Jersey obsession? Maybe it’s irony, maybe it’s recessionary escapism, or maybe we’re all just going to admit how much we love gold, but glitzed-out Italian-Americans are running rampant through pop culture.

Frankly, I’m surprised everyone was so late onto the bus. In the spirit of Black Friday, this week I’m going to expose my longstanding and irrational love of what I like to call the Manzo Factor.

O.G. Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny and Michelle Pfeiffer in Married to the Mob

Growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, I had the distinct pleasure of knowing my fair share of Italian-American Princesses. Ethnically speaking, I should fall into this category myself, but in high school it seemed I could only observe those schoolmates who exuded a certain non so cosa of the mother country.

The uniform was always the same (partially owing to our school’s dress code, but I’d like to think it would have been this way anyway): black turtlenecks, sportish sneakers (sometimes with a sneaky Prada sport stripe or Superga tag), messy highlighted hair in a high bun and, of course, big jewelry passed down from leggy moms.

When everyone else was figuring out how and when to shave one’s legs, these girls were already hitting the tanning beds and getting their eyebrows threaded. I mean, when the rest of us pallid plebes are in Gap khakis and running shoes, how could you not look enviously? Sure, maybe their dads’ jobs seemed questionable, but whatever, their moms drove Jaguars and they had the expensive kind of field hockey stick.

Not beyond but one with the glitz, these girls exuded a timelessness that was otherwise void from high school. How any teenage girl could not only resist but float obliviously past passing fads is still a bit confusing for me. When everyone else was begging for Doc Martens, these girls were content with driving mocs and sport loafers. In fact, one of my favorite elements of this subculture is that every trend is routinely adjusted before being fully assimilated. In this way Italian-American Princesses never really alter their essential appearance — for good or ill.

So this week, as the country gears up for a month of forgetting about budget crises, Quicken® and general prudence, I say let’s embrace the Manzo in us all and start writing checks until the ink runs out!

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For more by Zinzi, visit http://evilmonito.com/author/zinzi/.

via Zinzi Edmundson, 24 November 2009 1:02pm | |