Want a quick tour of the past thirty years in fashion? Here ya go, courtesy of Harriet Posnak Lesser who not only lived it but, despite that she pokes fun at herself, was and is quite the fashionista. And no, I have never seen her sporting a pink jogging suit – but I may have had one. Enjoy this trip through recent fashion history … Harriet Posnak Lesser does and chronicles the fall of the Melody Lesser
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The golden days of the Greasy Silver Spoon are over. The legendary old luncheonette where my suburban friends and I gathered to see and be seen has closed its doors forever, a victim of changing times and styles.
I ate at the ‘Spoon’ every week for almost 30 years. That adds up to 1040 tuna salad sandwiches on thin toast and at least 2080 cups of decaffeinated coffee. (I always ask for seconds.) The best seats faced the door, giving you an up front and personal look at who was wearing what. Through the decades I watched my friends, acquaintances and PTA pals come and go in gaucho pants with wide black hats, polyester shirts with elephant bells, fringed suede vests, hot pants, midi skirts, mini skirts and hand knitted sweaters trimmed in angora, sequins, rhinestones and dead snakes. I saw shoes run the gamut from four and a half inch heels with platforms to mid-heels to plastic go-go boots to flats. I watched the rise and fall of hem lengths—and I was there when it all came apart like a slip-stitched jacket with a loose thread.
The beginning of the end for the Greasy Silver Spoon goes back to that day in 1978 when Cher Cheryl Chimpsky, our town’s major trendsetter, walked in wearing pink velour sweat pants with top to match and hand-painted sneakers. At first there was silence, and then everyone talked at once. “What is she wearing?”… “She looks terrible in that outfit” and “Where can I get one just like it?”
The world as we knew it, changed after that. Instead of lunch, Cher Cheryl began coming in for brunch, looking sweaty and uncombed, explaining she’d just run around the block—twice. The pink velour running outfit was replaced by a lavender one and then a blue one and then a bright red one, Ad(idas) infinitum.. And the rest of us followed ‘suit.’
She took us from lavender to crinkly white nylon, to crinkly black nylon with multi-color print patches, then on to sweatshirt separates with popular advertising slogans emblazoned across the chest. Does she or doesn’t she? Think outside the buns. When you’ve got it, flaunt it. Inexpensive and built to stay that way.
I’ll never forget the day Cher Cheryl walked in with her personal designer water bottle around her neck. Soon we were all sipping away from our own water holders, shunning the Greasy Silver Spoon’s diet mocha malteds. That really hurt business. After a while, we just stopped hanging out at the GSP. If you’ve seen one warmup suit, you’ve seen them all. And a tuna sandwich is, after all, an overdose of carbohydrates.
A new era was under way. Dressing up brought a dressing down from fashionista friends. You could and still can go almost anywhere in a shapeless two-piece velour thing and sneakers. Or you can opt for a pair of torn jeans. In either case, throw on a baseball cap and the look is complete. The good old days will never return, unless …
I can find Cher Cheryl Chimpsky and convince her to walk down our town’s Main Street – past the boarded up windows of the Greasy Silver Spoon—in a Chanel suit and Jimmy Choo shoes with four and a half inch heels and two inch platforms.
©2015 HARRIET POSNAK LESSER
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Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.