BY MICHAEL ROBERTS

Alicia, fashion journalist,
Compiles her tabloid’s “in/out” list
And dresses in the latest rage
As featured on her fashion page.
What others mock as simply vile,
To her is of the highest style.
And clothes fit for rubbish heap
She finds “intriguing”, “subtle”, “deep”.
Her wardrobe, vast and overflowing,
Has witnessed every gimmick going
From pointy bra to power shoulder,
The styles stay young but she grows older.

Come the days that make her sing
The Paris fashion shows for spring.
As hems shoot up and heels sink down
Alicia and her ilk hit town.
Like frisky fillies jumping fences
They frolic, filling vast expenses
Installed at Crillon, Meurice, Ritz
(whose service thrills them quite to bits)
They-between their bar selections-
Will take in just a few collections.

Poor Alicia, well she knows
That dreaded final day of shows
‘Tis when her small designer haul
She’ll drag by bus to Charles de Gaulle,
And full of tales, some worth the telling,
Jet back to her suburban dwelling,
Like all those girls of slender means
With hearts in France but homes in Queens