Standing in a crowded room Monday evening at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, Derek Blasberg, dressed head to toe in Burberry, is cracking jokes and engaging in conversations with Dallas’ most dolled-up ladies and fashion scenesters. Blasberg is the life of his own party, hosted in honor of his recent book release by former President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara and Gilt Groupe founder Alexis Maybank.
Blasberg is the Ryan Seacrest of fashion journalism. Not only is he the ‘editor at large’ of Condé Nast’s Style.com, he has a monthly column in Harper’s Bazaar and is the senior fashion news and special projects editor at V Magazine. On the side of those three positions, he edits best-selling books such as Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s “Influence” and contributes regularly to countless publications, including Interview and several international editions of Vogue.
His non-stop career demands his attendance at every runway show, exclusive fashion party and societal gala. His fashion connections forged through his career and his party-hopping habits have resulted in close friendships with everyone from supermodels like Agness Deyn and Jessica Stam, to famous troublemakers like Lindsay Lohan and Peaches Geldof and fashion’s ‘it’ girls like Alexa Chung, Chloe Sevigny, Kate Bosworth and Byrdie Bell.
His vast knowledge and experience with today’s batch of beautiful, rich and famous young women led him to write a manual giving advice to the everyday girl on how exactly to be a respectable modern lady.
“I wrote the book because in today’s times, if I was a 15-year-old girl I would be confused as to who’s a good role model and who’s good entertainment,” Blasberg said, as he addressed the Dallas crowd about his book “Classy. “Not to name names, because I’m very classy, but I think you all know who I’m talking about,” he continued.
In the book he divides young women into two categories: ladies and tramps. The author breaks down everything from what outfit choices, Facebook statuses and even the shapes of your eyebrows say about your level of class.
“Too often have I found myself surrounded by bad-mannered women, or out with friends who are dressed outrageously inappropriately,” Blasberg said in an excerpt from “Classy” Too often have I witnessed nasty girls get propped on society’s pedestal and become famous for all the wrong reasons.”
SMU senior Tracy Glesby read the book before she came to the event on Monday and raved about Blasberg’s humor and wit.
“It’s hilarious, I already read it!” Glesby. said. “For me it was a new take on what exactly to say in situations for the updated woman. It talks about text messaging and what’s appropriate on the Internet today.”
Alexis Maybank, founder of online luxury close-out website Gilt Groupe and a good friend of Blasberg’s, is a fan of the book and offers it for purchase on her website GiltGroupe.com.
“It covers everything from appropriate online flirting to how to travel in style, everything that our Gilt female members need to know,” Maybank said.
When it comes to class, poise and elegance Blasberg sees “Harry Potter” actress Emma Watson as the perfect role-model.
“She is a very successful actress, but she’s still humble and sweet and well educated,” Blasberg said of the star who has been famous for almost half of her life.
Blasberg said he hopes young teenage girls want to emulate the positive characteristics Watson possesses.
“I would want her to look like Emma Watson, and not like, you know, a girl that gets 10 plastic surgeries in one day or a girl that gets a reality show on the shore of New Jersey,” he said on today’s mix of pop culture public figures. “I’ll say I love those shows, but I know enough to know they’re train wrecks, but if I were 14 or 15, I don’t know if I would.”
The advice in “Classy” is mostly aimed at an audience younger than college-aged women because Blasberg says teenage girls are in a pivotal stage of their lives when moral values and positive ambitions can still be instilled. By the time they’re in college he says the biggest problem with women is common sense.
“Know that the Internet can be terrible and dangerous. Don’t ever e-mail something, send a picture or do a sex tape that could be sent out inappropriately,” Blasberg advises. “We live in a society where everything’s okay, but some things shouldn’t be.”
Twenty-two-year-old Glesby found much of the advice in the book applicable to her and her peers’ lifestyles.
“It is definitely something you could read if you were in the eighth grade up to 30-years-old,” Glesby said of “Classy”. “I would recommend it for other people to read, especially if you are graduating leaving the college world and entering the real world, you need to know how to act.”
Blasberg stressed that there are simple things that young woman in today’s society are failing to do that are essential to being classy.
“I think every girl should write a thank you note when she’s thankful for something, and every girl should wear underwear,” Blasberg said with a serious face. “There’s just a few check-offs that these girls should make.”
The author’s commentary on the topics of etiquette and taboo behaviors provides a light, fun read, while the pictures and diagrams that back up his points in each chapter are entertaining. Some of the book’s highlights include, chapters on “How to dress sexy without looking like a skank,” “Which guy is good, which guy is bad and which guy is gay” and “How to flirt without facing charges of cyber stalking.”
Blasberg credits his ability to accurately examine class versus trash to his rich history in the fashion industry and his everyday American upbringing in the Midwest.
“What does a boy from Missouri who drove a Pontiac to his public high school know about black-tie galas and VIP rooms?” Blasberg rhetorically asked in the book. “What does a guy, who grew up buying clothes at strip malls, know about diamonds and the haute couture?”
Apparently, enough not only to have a successful growing-by-the minute career in fashion journalism, but also to fill his 230-page manual with clever, well-thought-out advice.
“I’m taking a stand, and encouraging young women to be better behaved and to realize that life can be so much more than the happy hour special at your local strip club,” Blasberg writes in the book.
