Fern Mallis' Misstep: "This is Really the Stupidest Thing I Ever Did"

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Comedy writer Bonnie Datt once bought a chainmail vest "for clubbing"—a purchase she later came to lament, once she realized that chainmail isn't terribly slimming. Inspired by this, she now spends her spare time asking famous people to dish about purchases which they initially loved—but ended up regretting, for Buyer's Remorse.

Fern Mallis is truly the doyenne of Fashion Week. When she first became the director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, New York designers held their fashion shows in a disorganized manner, at disparate locations around the city. After a ceiling started disintegrating on the crowd during a Michael Kors' show, Fern took on the task of creating what is now known as Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Since then she's gone on to be a VP at IMG, a guest judge on Project Runway, a regular judge on The Fashion Show, as well as starting her own consultancy company. We still see her out, every fashion week, supporting countless emerging and established designers. So we were dying to know what, if anything, she'd ever had buyer's remorse about.

Turns out that, just like actress Patti D’Arbanville, gold footwear was to blame...

Racked: Have you ever had buyer's remorse about something you were initially excited to buy?

Fern Mallis: I can tell you I totally know that moment of "Why did I buy this?" Sometimes you see something in the store and you get it home and you look around and think, "This is really the stupidest thing I ever did." It's happened many times in my life and it's often been, "Okay I'll get home and it will fit better in a week, I'll starve," but it just never happens.

At a Manolo Blahnik VIP shoe sale several years ago I bought a pair of gold sequin stillettos. I figured they'd be a great accent shoe for a LBD... I've never worn them, and think I should have left them for the drag queens that were shopping.
· All Buyer's Remorse Posts [Racked]