Hello, my name is Victoria and I love lamé.

This is my confessionary statement of adoration for this liquid metallic fabric that to the uneducated ear sounds so icky, yet so intriguing!

I’ve had this morbid fascination when it came to these accessories ever since I heard Balenciaga was making custom pairs for $100,000 each. That is no typo. One hundred grand. I’ll let you calculate all the necessary life goods that one would be purchasing before a pair of these bad boys, and make no mistake: they are constructed out of fabric; not actual gold. Nicholas Ghesquiére is either a madman, or a genious.

Here’s the deal: I bought my first pair of lamé leggings from the South Granville American Apparel about three weeks ago. I’m not going to lie, I was hesitant. I grabbed up a pair of gold lovelies; and was quite the hesitation monster while feeling quite humbled by the potential of myself looking as C3-PO’s long lost daughter entered the change room.

Suddenly they were on. I looked down and thought: my god, this is magical! I stood inside, kind of dazzled at my own bottom half for a minute or so, then realized my very patient friend Kim was still waiting outside for me to show myself.

There I was. I didn’t really know what to say except for “I think….I think I love them! Are they horrible?” Standing by the room door mirror, I examined the side view damage. Bear in mind that since these are pretty much as tight as you can possibly have a pant-style legging there is no escape for any “generous” proportions. If you’ve got alot, anywhere, they’ll show it.

Kim was more than a little boggled by the visual. We decided that if they were smooth, I was venturing into statue-style liquid gold territory so I rumpled them up some and was good to go.

I decided to brave the crowds of judging eyes, since I had seen them worn by some waifs in Vogue [among other magazines]. I figure, who the hell wears lamé?! Goddamn awesome people do. This will be rad. I paid the $40 CA pricetag, and skipped out of the store as one happy customer.

My first wear was a success; my friend Curtis Santiago‘s cd release party. I chose to wear them as a pant with a very long black Gsus t-shirt that read “sport bores me to death” in matching gold capital letters, as well as my new black ankle boots. I was loving it, and definatley got the crowd reaction I was gunning for.

Now comes the frightening side of lamé. Realize that yes, body type matters with this one. You really don’t want to end up looking like Ms. Beth Ditto [of The Gossip], which is to put it politely; is a giant metallic sausage. Treat that fabric with respect and you’ll come out of your party just fine.

A few items I intend to grab up before the’re gone are the bodysuit (which would look space-stellar under a vest and shorts!), the silver twins to my gold leggings and two headbands to match.

All in all, if you decide to dive into the land of metallics for this fall (and I suggest that if you can, you do!) treat this baby with caution. The last thing we want is to see another Beth or gal in a pink 80s getup with mismatched gold leggings. Spare us all the visual torment!