Shopaholics understand instinctively that a necessary precursor to any grand shopping spree such as the international shoppers’ party and shop-a-thon (a call to arms, really) called Fashion’s Night Out, billed for September 10, is the mini-shopping spree. The mini-shopping spree, without the benefit of FNO’s slap-happy discounts, must never be taken out of context. It is meant to procure the absolute essentials, non-extraneous items deemed vital in assisting with appearance and mood for the big night out. Like, for example, the wine I purchased last FNO intended to relieve inhibitions and postpone buyers’ remorse until after the credit cards had sustained the ultimate FNO ‘shell-dung’.

This year, the pre-shopping item is intended to be a slinky pair of skinny jeans for the night. Incredibly, I have jeans of all descriptions in my closet. But no skinny jeans. Hated them in the 80s but, inexplicably, I crave them now. I can see myself pliéing into a pair. Throw on a fetching top, preferably something white, and rock a pair of metallic ballet flats and my oversized tan Dolce & Gabbana handbag and I’d be good to go and do battle in the stores.

But dear God, why did I not know how practically unobtainable they were? There were all kinds of issues. There’s the lack of vanity sizing, which, I rather suspect, is more my issue than the designers’, and the less said, frankly, the better. Then, there was also the problem of the wrong wash, and, more perversely, the wrong colour (one eager-beaver store assistant artlessly urged that black skinnies were just as good as blue ones. Really? Like, no. There’s no substitute for blue jeans, girlie.).

Frantically, I went looking for the Hello! Skinny jeans brand I read about online with its mission statement that pledged they would be “thigh-slimming, stomach-flattening, buttocks-shaping, leg-lengthening”? (Swear to God!) Tick-tock, tick-tock. Panic stations a-go! Didn’t these people know that September 10 beckoned?

Fashion may be freedom, as I wrote last week, but it can also be a downright fright fest.

Thankfully, the fashion-forward set has grasped the not-so-arcane concept of pre-shopping to go shopping. Local designer Lubica has designed a special line of T-shirts and Appleton’s John Stephens and Brian Beecham designed the Appleton Reserve Voguista, the signature cocktail for FNO. Pretty much like how international shoe company Keds has made a special line of toile and striped sneakers for New York’s Fashion’s Night Out and Savannah College of Art and Design and Debuton Mulberry Street did US$200 T-shirts featuring paintings of fashion insiders like Andre Leon Talley.

There are, of course, those fashion non-believers who’ll contend that since Americans won’t be spending that much during this year’s release of pent-up shopping endorphins might as well pull out the stops for the pre-shopping. There is no concrete evidence, they’ll say, that last year’s FNO in New York had any meaningful impact on sales. (Oh, what New York retailers wouldn’t have given to have had retail outlets in Kingston where certain cash registers, I’m told, simply buckled and gave up the ghost under the weight of the strain, forcing panicked sales people to whip out antiquated, manually-operated, much-cobwebbed cash bill books!) This year in the Big Apple, what with fraidy-cat Americans terrified their economy is backsliding into recession once again, those bloody fashion naysayers are suggesting that FNO sales will be even less this year. Which is why they’re positing that this year’s party will see a shift in focus, away from retail merchandising and more towards creating a positive, nurturing experience for shoppers by strategically positioning fashion demigods like Michael Kors, busy with showing their collections at Fashion Week, and other celebrities of varying pedigree, for appearances in-store at swanky Manhattan locations like Saks, Bergdorf’s, and Bloomies. Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, for example, are tipped to be judging karaoke at Barneys. And to ensure that even the weakest pockets go out on the night, Opening Ceremony has recruited designers to work at an indoor flea market at the Ace Hotel, near the theatre district, selling mostly items for under $100.

All I can say is thank God we in Jamaica live to break the rules.

Perish the thought that this year’s FNO will be a flop. It never ceases to amaze me how lavish we are with our spending. Even in times of depression and recession – which, weirdly, can be traced to any given period of our history since Independence. But that’s for another time. Last year’s local edition of FNO, by all accounts, was a resounding success that gave the economy a much-needed shot in the arm. American writer Eric Wilson summed up FNO in New York, which I found applicable to what happened in Kingston, thusly: “(It) resulted in a shopping spectacle so bonkers that a few retail executives, including the chiefs of major department stores, were caught off guard. Tens of thousands of customers swarmed aisles, clogged escalators and gawked at pop stars, and that was just at Saks Fifth Avenue… It looked as if a year’s worth of pent-up shopping frustrations had been released on the streets of SoHo. Nobody ever got this worked up about Restaurant Week.”

Ain’t that the mother-loving truth?

So, dear reader, let’s raise a toast that I’ll find my jeans post-haste and that the good times will once again roll this year.

To fashion!