The Shirt Off My Back

The lovely and one-of-a-kind Ms. Camilla Combs made a visit to my house last week, and boy, did we have some fun.

You may pay for expensive face creams; I pay for a stylist to come diss my clothing purchases.  I’m telling you, it’s worth EVERY PENNY.  I love it.  It’s a little like asking for a spanking.

You may remember my post last year when I first hired Camilla to come do some closet styling.  She’s this awesome BYU grad that now lives and works in Salt Lake City.  Take a looky at her website and you will definitely get a feel for her personality.  Her personality screams itself hoarse with the wacky shit she puts on her body.  I have only visited the BYU campus once; it was during a time when I was working on a Disney film and I had to use their library for research.  I walked onto the campus in a tank top and from the looks I received you would have thought I was strutting around NAKED.  I’m not kidding you.  I’m not sure what the student body thought of Camilla’s fur stoles and crazy neon heels, but I am pretty sure she got a fair amount of stares during her time there.

Not everything about Camilla is nutty.  She is sort of a chameleon that way.  Like one day she’ll bust out something very staid and almost normal:

And then the next day she will put on a mind-bender like this:

I mean, when I came across that old polyester Izod tennis skirt on her website, I laughed out loud and wanted to leave a comment that said THE BRADY BUNCH WANTS THEIR WARDROBE BACK.

And I will have you know I feel totally OK laughing at some of Cami’s outfits because when she comes to my house and I pay her to purge the uglies out of my closet, that’s basically what she does.  I’m paying her to make fun of my clothing.  AND I LOVE IT.  I’m a sucker for punishment that’s delivered with a sense of humor.

We had some good laughs this visit.  We also purged lots of articles of clothing I keep around in plastic storage tubs for GOD KNOWS WHAT REASON.  Please, people, tell me that you do the same thing.  You pack up your seasonal clothes and have a hard time getting rid of horrible and outdated things because you think SOMEDAY I MIGHT WEAR THIS CAMPING.  As I repeated that phrase for the third time on Camilla’s visit, she asked me very nicely how many camping shirts I actually needed.  Then I threw them in the “donate” pile.

If you don’t have a Camilla, you need a good friend to do this for you.  And you can’t get mad at them for hating that empire waist dress you think is cool.

My favorite conversation of the day:

(I put on a purple and grey striped sweater to model.  It was kind of a stretchy/clingy sort of deal with a v-neck.)

ME:  What do you think about this?

CAMILLA:  Ummm.  No.  That needs to go.

ME:  Really???

CAMILLA:  Yeah.  That’s bad.

ME:  Seriously?  How bad is it?  (I jump up and down with no bra on)  Look – it shows off my boobs!

CAMILLA:  It’s so bad.  It looks like what those teenage girls wear with flares.  It looks like you bought it at…at…

ME:  Forever 21?

CAMILLA:  Worse than Forever 21.  It looks like you bought it at…oh what’s that place?  Like you bought it at CHARLOTTE RUSSE!!

ME:  (cracking up) Seriously?!?  Charlotte Russe!!  ba ha ha ha ha!!!

I wish I had taken a picture of me in that sweater before I donated it.  I completely forgot to do that.

My other favorite things that Camilla said to me during our closet clean-out:

“I’m just…confused by that.”

“That’s kind of insane looking.  But it’s also kind of sexy.”

“Hey mama!  What are you going to do, wear garments with those walking shorts?”

“This just…needs to go.”

AND MY ULTIMATE FAVORITE -

“I think you have the best butt I’ve ever seen!  I’m in awe of your butt!”

At the end of my two hours, I made Camilla try on this crazy jumper my mom bought me for my birthday.  Some funky little item she picked up at TJMaxx.  I sort of liked the idea of the jumper, but it just did not work on my body.  Cami put it on and after getting a good laugh I decided it would be my generous parting gift to her.  I even encouraged her to feature it on her website as an outfit of the day.  And that she should call it the “Piper Surprise”.

Which she did.  I can prove it – right here.  And of course, that crazy getup my mom bought that looked like a strange remnant from “I Dream of Jeannie” on me ended up looking pretty damn cute on her.

Just the fact that she really named it the Piper Surprise…WORTH EVERY PENNY, I TELL YOU.