Barbi Does Miami

mostly from my oxymoronic years between Miami and Milford

Author Archives: barbidoesmiami


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every day is earth day

It’s Earth Day. Today.

Its also take your kid to work day. How did they get the two on one day? And who is they anyway? Like who allocates them? Mother’s day and Father’s day and Valentine’s day and Secretary’s day and Ocean day? My mother used to say, before my father ran off with her best friend, “every day is father’s day”. Personally I think every day should be Mother’s day. And Earth day and Earth Mother’s day and Mother Earth’s day. Really! We have, like, ozone holes and vanishing rainforests and melting ice, and oil spills and mountain top removal and fracking and extinct species, and air pollution and clean water shortage and now all that plastic in the oceans that kills everything from whales to birds to fish and eventually us, and all we have is ONE day! Only one day a year that is Earth day….

What bullshit!

One Day To Feel Good About Ourselves and the Environment Day is what today should be called, so tomorrow we can go back to our old ways of buying bottled Evian, forgetting to bring cloth bags to the market, leaving the lights on, driving instead of taking our bike or walking.

BUT

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe its arrogant to assume that we, as just another, be it rather pernicious species, have to assume the position of “saving the planet” when its only us who’s making the mess in the first place. Its a bit like beating your wife and then helping her with the ice packs and band-aids. Take a look at the last tsunami, the earthquakes, the volcano just last week and its easy to see that we the people, are, after all, pretty powerless, and that Mother Earth may just have her own plans  to save herself.

And I don’t think she calls it  “Human Species Day”.

What WE need is a Human Species Day. Atonement Day. Reflect humbly on who and what we are and correct our ways to save ourselves and each other.

(All of above said in the words of Michael Jackson: with the love…with the love…)

plover eggs and beach plastic


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earth mother’s day

photo: Iona Gordon

Last week I got a FB comment from Tony, my former fashion PR in London. We’d lost touch for 25 years. It said:
“Wow you’ve become such an ‘earth mother’… What happened?!!!!”
Ouch. I thought. I’m not cool anymore. I’m not post-punk London groovy anymore. I’m not young and cutting edge and wild  a n y m o r e.
I’m an EARTH MOTHER!

SHIT.

I thought of cutting my hair and bleaching it . I thought of piercing my nose and tongue and moving back to London. I thought of me 25 years ago and I felt wistful.

Tony now owns a  forecast service, predicting future fashion trends and runs it from Melbourne. I guess the latest wave of Green fashion hasn’t reached there yet, lets face it fashion forecasting from down under must be quite a challenge… I’m being bitchy. I know, here:    ; )   … a blinking smiley should make Tony feel better.

So  this is what happened:

I became a mother.

I grew up.

I saw better, clearer and beyond myself.

and use this in my work…

So maybe now I’m an earth mother and maybe I’m proud of it. Maybe the earth needs mothers. Its not like the fathers have done such a great job over the ages with their offerings of virgins and plundering and raping and not picking up after themselves. Maybe it takes some global mega-mothering, you know, like mothers for wiping sooty volcano’s, tucking in trembling fault lines, putting bandages on gaping ozone holes, and cold compresses on raising temperatures. And how about a few volunteer mother surrogates against the extinction of the Iberian Lynx , Saiga  Antelope, Sumatran Tiger, Silky Sifafka and the South China Tiger?

If only.

If only earth mothers had father time on their side….


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easta at aqua

we got water

we got eggs.

this year I counted them. 25 each. 4 went unaccounted for. They’re with the single socks. remarkably peaceful and laid back Easter sunday.
Husband had to do taped interview, go figure, so without annual church guilt, his father was after al the minister and easter by far the most daunting religious holiday of the year for him, us girls did pajamas, colored a few more eggs, ate  proportionately more chocolate eggs than were colored, watched tennis, quick visit to Lincoln Road to photograph dogs, Iona’s plan for a blog: THE DOGS OF LINCOLN ROAD, swam 20 laps, dinner and to bed.

OOPS, i dropped the pancake


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Aqua is dry

Aqua has no water.

For 36 hours now.

About ten minutes ago the pipes gurgled and the battle cry “FLUSH – NOW” echoed between the Aqua luxury condos. As a result of over-enthusiastic flushing the water is off again, unable to instantly flood, what? 2000, 3000? 4000? toilets.
How many toilets between 51st and 63rd Street one wonders, how many dishwashers? How many sinks, showers and washing machines?

We just showered at our friend’s house. She’s away skiing. We fought over who’d get in first. I lost. I got last but longest. While waiting I remembered going camping, I did this a lot when I was a teen, and being everso grateful to be home as if the only satisfaction of being one with nature for days on end was the ensuing luxury of standing under warm running water until the hot ran out.

Yesterday, while I was having a swim ( yes there was still clean water in the Aqua pool), a women hunched by my side, and, while avoiding eye contact , filled two gallon-flasks. Stealing water from the pool! Really, how third world is that? That’s one tea party I do not want to be invited to (actually I can name a few others).

“Soon,” they tell us. “We’re working on it,” they say. “Divers have been in the water since four this morning,” they assure me. Divers? How? Really? Where there are divers there is water!  Aqua super heros!

Mommy, I hear a diver in the pipe! Aaaahh, good sweetie, things will soon back to normal…

Turns out our water pipes run under water, like along Indian Creek. Thats why, this morning on my way to get bottled water at Publix, I saw that confused crew of guys in fluorescent gear and flippers poring over a map, while leaning against a small shabby boat on a City of Miami Beach trailer.

Eventually  all becomes clear.

Meanwhile they’ve promised us Porta-potties. Whooppee!

as per e-mail:

” In the interim, we are working on providing portable toilet services for the community.”

See?

This means that, I, Barbi,  get to stand on line with the CEO of Mattress World and also mega property developers, drug dealers, porn kings and stars, famous DJ’s, bratty cokehead children of Russian billionaires, a gaggle of trophy wives with implants (Brazilian butt and breast), that MOSSAD lieutenant who flies the Israeli flag, droves of gay interior designers holding their noses, real estate agents, etc etc. Think about it,  what a perfect networking opportunity !

Meanwhile one learns from these “trying” situations. First off: I learned that Iona has a nervous breakdown when she’s unable to shower for 24 hours, and will refuse to leave the house. I also learned that the twins couldn’t care less. I learned that my hair is best hidden after 36 hours, but that husband, when I wear head scarf, will let me know that he doesn’t dig my “chemo” look.

Fuck off! I said and also learned  that my sense of humor, like the water, has run dry.

better times, the days of plenty….

satisfying results when operating jacuzzi

Leila?

Kiki?


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barbi in love …

home?

Its a crazy mess inside my head.

Every For Sale sign becomes a For Rent sign, everywhere I drive I imagine living. I ponder the beach versus the mainland, Sobe versus Brickell, the Grove, Downtown, North Beach, Normandy Isle. I weigh ocean-front condo against a home with a yard against a community townhouse. Then I’m sure again that Aqua, where we now live is perfect, and that I should  find a  more affordable place here. I’m turning into a real estate catalog. Every Miami for rent three-plus bedroom now has a place in my mind. 95% is unaffordable and other the 5%  is too small for our five enormous personalities. If its true that you become what’s on your mind then I’ll be a condo soon ( a gorgeous large but cheap one).

Yes, yes, yes Iona got into DASH and our nine month escape from the winter has turned into something very different. Oh its life-changing,  our friends say. Hell yes.  Like how the fuck do I patch this one together. Didn’t we just built a huge beautiful house that I love  back in Milford? Wasn’t it the perfect place for us? Didn’t we create a balance between living, kids and work, lots of lovely friends, in a picture perfect village? Didn’t I say, when we moved in three years ago, it was great to know that we’d never have to move again?

sweet home

But no, we had to go and fall in love.

Suddenly Miami is the perfect place for us. We ALL fell in love with the palm trees, the beach, the bays and canals and swimming pools, the gardens and parks on every corner. Miami is crazy  cosmopolitan, its not a white American city.  Its Cuban and Italian and Jewish and Venezuelan and Chilean and its loud and a tad dangerous and  hot and sweaty and gritty and romantic and we want  it. We don’t want to flirt with it anymore, we want to get married and have babies. Well, maybe no more babies. But we want to look after our three baby girls, do whats best for them. And Iona is in love with DASH and Kiki and Leila are like Miami, wild and intense and engaging and a tad dangerous.

Husband and I? Don’t know. I’ve always been a sucker for moving. I left home in Amsterdam when I was seventeen. But my bag had been packed since I was ten. Not because I hated my life. I’ve never moved because I hate my life. Paris, Sydney, Melbourne, London, New York, Princeton, Milford, Miami,  I always moved because those places nurtered me enough to turn another corner and experience more, learn more, challenge myself more and expand. Its never personal. Its just who I am.

And husband? We’ll let him speak for himself. He loves to swim and his goal is to swim in every pool in Miami and write about it. I’ll say no more I’ll just send you links, after all he’s the seasoned writer in this house.

Meanwhile.

I’m sitting in front of this giant puzzle and all the pieces are still strewn in front of me. School, home, kids, husband, dog, renters,  friends, work and money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. Money. And Health Insurance.

And I’m going a little crazy…


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and then there was the barbi BIO…

my turtleneck WILL come off...

Barbara de Vries was born in Amsterdam, where she was a shy child until her fourth grade teacher encouraged her to dance on her desk and tease the boys with her zip-down sixties dress. After this pivotal moment of self discovery her life improved and she started to dream of horizons beyond the grey, wet and flat security of the Netherlands. At age seventeen Barbara packed her bags to pursue a modeling career in Paris, but when she refused to strip for designer Andre Courreges (go figure) her agency threw her out. Eventually she became a top model in London for publications and designers like Vogue, Bazaar, Zandra Rhodes, Yves Saint Laurent and many others. She used modeling as a way to support herself through fashion college and launched her own collection which sold at Harvey Nichols, Neiman Marcus and Seibu, Japan and she dressed celebrity clients like Princess Diana. After ten years Barbara packed her bags again and came to New York where, in 1990, she was snapped up by Calvin Klein to become his senior VP of Design and she went on to create the CK collections which made fashion history when Marky Mark and Kate Moss wore (very little of) what Barbara had designed while posing almost naked over Times Square.
Next Barbara stripped for author Alastair Gordon, who soon became her husband. They had three daughters and moved to Pennsylvania, which dampened Barbara’s exhibitionist spirit until she discovered that, now that she’d passed forty, writing was not only the next best way to bare herself, but that from her new perspective she could throw light on the unattainable standards of beauty the fashion industry puts upon women’s self esteem. While she continues to work as a freelance creative director Barbara also writes professionally, such as the piece for NPR’s All Things Considered  on modeling and eating disorders.

told you so!


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The BlackBerry Diet – a novel

OK.

So.

Here it is. The first try-out synopsis I’m putting out there:

—————————————————————–

The Blackberry Diet is nothing like the Acai-Berry Diet.  The BlackBerry Diet is about sex and beauty and fashion and Paris and Calvin Klein and Kate Moss and family and aging gracefully. The BlackBerry Diet actually works. At least it did for Katja van Doorn. A harassed mother of three, who, several lifetimes ago, was an aspiring model in Paris, and now suspects that her husband Finn is having an affair, a BlackBerry affair, with a pretty Parisienne, who apparently looks like a younger version of Katja. While she’s spying through her husband’s BlackBerry, Katja stresses about her picture-perfect life in the Catskills, relives her early days in Paris, pines for her glory years in the New York fashion world and loses weight. As her marriage unravels she realizes that fifty is not the new thirty and she finally takes matters into her own hands and heads back to Paris, where past and present collide when she prepares to confront her young nemesis…

Whatya think?

Would you read it?


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the synopsis

barbi does cosmo

Why, after writing three hundred pages and 65,000 words of a complete novel is it impossible to say what its about in a few hundred words? The synopsis is due and I am procrastinating. My bio too. Also hard. Like who am I? Who do I want to be? Which part is appealing, which picture, which part of my life will draw editors and readers to me instead of evoke who-does-she-think-she-is disgust?

Really!

Don’t people hate ex-models? Aren’t models supposed to be seen and not heard? Apparently Tyra Banks’ agent said, when Tyra first pitched Americas Next Top Model, let face it models are just not very sympathetic characters thats why people don’t want to know about them. Well wasn’t he wrong. Turns out people love to see pretty wannabe models be humiliated, cry and then bitch about it. But thats beside my point. Actually it isn’t. I’m fascinated by the whole beauty culture. I was submerged in it for ages, so deep that I had no perspective.

Now that I’m older and live on the fashion periphery I see.

mama barbi

More clearly.

For instance I see the whole anti-aging mania. I had lunch with a woman last Friday, an ex-model,  who said that she represented the anti-aging institute here in Miami.  How cool, I tought, an institute that supports aging in a positive way. WRONG! It was a botox, lift, nip and tuck center, and might as well be called the How To Hide That You’re Aging Institute. See thats my point. Our culture is not as much about being young as it’s about apppearing young when you’re not anymore. I was right smack in the middle of it this. Yet I never  grasped ( I was a stupid model)  the reasoning and consequences  of each youthful, laughing, leaping with happyness at the sheer pretty-ness of my existence photograph I took, to sell products by pretending that I was onto something that other women were not but might be if they bought into what I was wearing, drinking, smoking etc. Not a clue. I just smiled and leapt and took the fat check home. As for being sexy in those pictures, well you may be happy to hear that it never got me any sex. I’ll debunk this while I’m at it. Men were terrified of the Cosmo cover girl. I could stand alone at parties with hundreds of hot guys and the only ones trying to pick me up were greasy midgets with Greek shipping magnate names like Spiros. But I’m not getting to the synopsis. Not at all. In fact I’m still effectively procrastinating.

Although the novel is about all of the above, its also not. Its about sex and beauty and fashion and Calvin Klein and Kate Moss and Paris and fifty looming and losing weight and adultery and French mistresses and family and a BlackBerry and falling apart. Its more than that and its different than that. Less of a rant, more of a story. Like is it a love story? Kinda. Is it a story of self discovery? (yawn) Kinda. Is it about me? Yes and no.

So now you’re thinking, then what the fuck is it Barbi? Like if you dont know then how are we supposed to know?

You will. I promise. I’m just kicking up dust and see what settles. Using you and this blog-thing to get my head from the story to  an advertising-copy sized essence of what took me 65,000 casual self-effacing words into something  that now needs to read like the self-important blurb at the supermarket check out.

Suggestions are most welcome and also see poll below…


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DASH – ing

Iona's self portrait

If every principal was like Stacey Mancuso the world would be a better place.
I’m writing this from the courtyard of DASH, the Design & Architecture Senior High School. Its awesome. Like really awesome. Like I wanna go here when I grow up. I now know that I never appreciated school, never, not even college in London, St Martins, Harrow, The Royal College of Art. But I’d really appreciate it now. Especially DASH. Iona is auditioning as I write this. And I’m having Couvade ( that’s when men get contraction pains when their wife is in labor) I’m having I wanna get into this school contractions, and like Iona I’m everso nervous for the audition. Poor Iona. Am I projecting? Bad mother!
So back to Stacey, and I’m not sucking up (yes, she’s funny and glamorous too) she just gets it. She gets kids, teenagers, what they need, how they’ll be their best when super motivated, super engaged, super challenged.

Never bored!

Iona’s Middle School teachers do NOT get it. They are angry. They punish. They fail to engage. Kids sleep in class. They text, listen to their I-pods. Like the gym teacher, who releases the entire class into the sports-field without any directions. She then disappears, sits around lazily, and the kids hang around in the grass, chat and listen to music. Then she suddenly stalks and punishes them by taking their music/ Ipod away. For a week, and if your parents complain she threatens, I’ll keep it for the rest of the school-year.
I want to complain but then they’ll be punished by doing one hundred push-ups without any sense that what they’re doing is for any other reason than breeding resentment.

So thats why I want Iona to go to a highs school like DASH. A place that sees teenagers as an endless source of creative posibility and not as juvenile delinquents. So wish her luck, fingers crossed and even send a little prayer if its not too much to ask.

Iona paints friend Josirus


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super bore sunday miami

mark ellwood

Audi super bowl party tonight at W penthouse with large outdoor deck only it rained so deck was closed for fear of ten inch heels slipping and diving down side of building. All of us cramped inside the PH suite with model renta crowd and two celebs as in Hillary Swank and Kate Walsh, going mostly unnoticed. Then onto the pool area where I met Mark Ellwood from Plum TV, celebrating his bday and talking about models, amazon models. It was that kind of night when mini mini skirts are more rampant than dead-from-frost lizards and husband remembers why we moved here in the first place and I remember why I stopped going… like why would anyone have a six foot sultry greeter in them ten inch heels at the door in a teensy black lace dress? She must’ve made at least 50% of party guests, as in women, turn and go home to hide under the covers hugging their teddy bears and pondering non-compete pre-nups. Tomorrow: twins have a treasure hunt birthday party at the Aventura mall, is this somehow an oxymoron? And one wonders: Twenty little girls running for clues and competing for treasure in a huge mall? Safe? Day before Super Bowl? Crowded? Lost little girls? I’m volunteering to chaperone…
Then another mini skirt leggy poolside affair at the Raleigh. Its party time again in Miami and I feel like Jon Stewart on Bill O’Reilly….I’m not scared….

barbi