Oh Fabu!

The next person who comes to me for fashion advice will be the first. I tended to follow the advice of the legendary Judith Darnell; “Wear only black, have only silver jewelery. That way you can get dressed in the dark and still match.” Sadly giant men wearing all black, and usually dark sunglasses, tend to put people off their feed. So I have learned to utilize some color options. Not many, but enough that random strangers no longer ask me how much I’d charge to put a hit on their spouse or business partner. Sometimes both.

That being said, I still find that I have a keen eye for beauty. I have nice, small, art collection and several little things that cleanly reflect my personal tastes and still manage to engage people who visit. In other words, you may never feel the need to emulate me, but you wouldn’t do too bad if you borrowed some of my aesthetics.

But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the judges of the Ms. San Antonio beauty contest have stripped the recent winner of her crown for no longer being acceptable to their perceptions. As Michael McGlaughlin reports, they don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for them.

A size-2 former San Antonio beauty queen is fighting in court to get her tiara back after claiming that pageant officials harassed her for packing on the pounds.

Dethroned Miss San Antonio Domonique Ramirez, 17, claimed pageant organizers told her to “get off the tacos” because the beauty no longer looked good in a bikini, The Associated Press reported.

Linda Woods, president of the Miss Bexar County organization, which runs the San Antonio competition, said that a recent bikini photo of Ramirez yielded “unusable” pictures and couldn’t be airbrushed, because the stunning teenager gained too much weight.

But that’s not why she stripped the Miss San Antonio 2001 sash from the 5-foot-8, 129-pound brunette in January, Woods said.

“Domonique is not fat by any stretch of the imagination,” Woods said. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

Instead, pageant officials handed the title — and the right to compete for Miss Texas and possibly Miss America — to runner-up Ashley Dixon because Ramirez didn’t fulfill the responsibilities of the gig.

Woods’ predecessor, Glynda Coyle, said that she discussed weight gain with Ramirez only once.

“The only thing I suggested to her is that she might want to try to lose an inch in her hip,” Coyle said. “But because she is who she is, I said we can pad the top part to make you more symmetrical.”

That last sentence is is beauty model speak for “You’ve got no boobs and your butt’s too big.”

But her trauma pales by comparison to the fashionable young gent who was forced by his evil employers to ….. dear God, it pains me to even think it, let alone say it ….. yes, you guessed it, he was forced to go to New Jersey.

AIEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Susannah Griffee has all the gory details of the man’s lawsuit.

Of course he sued. Wouldn’t you?

A top manager for design house Elie Tahari is demanding $2 million for “anguish” and “depression” he says was caused by driving to sadly unstylish New Jersey on a weekly basis.

Thomas Horodecki, who works as a manager for Tahari’s Saks Fifth Avenue shop, alleges that his supervisor, Sagit Halperin, forced him to travel to New Jersey at least once a week as part of his assignment to coordinate six retailers there.

“It was depressing driving to Jersey,” Horodecki told the New York Post. “New York City has everything when it comes to fashion, especially Saks. And when it comes to styling, let’s just say Jersey is difficult. Fashion it is not!”

Horodecki alleges in an arbitration claim filed Wednesday that Elie Tahari Ltd. and Sagit Halperin violated his rights under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Human Rights Law, the New York City Human Rights Law, the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York State Labor Law.

The claim says Halperin, who is Jewish and of Israeli descent, of promoting employees of her same national origin and discriminating against Horodecki, who is a Christian of Polish descent.

The claim also says Halperin vacationed with the staffers in Israel and socialized with them after work. Horodecki was not invited to those gatherings.

According to the claim, Halperin ordered Horodecki to travel to New Jersey stores, submit pictures of the stores, and create detailed floor plans for each store.

Horodecki said he was going crazy and had a breakdown.

Horodecki’s attorneys, Michael Borrelli and Alexander Coleman, said “no one should be treated the way he has been treated. It is outrageous to discriminate against employees in any way on the basis of their background.”

Todd Girshon, attorney for Tahari, declined to comment.

“We regret the comments Mr. Hordecki chose to make about New Jersey, which do not reflect the views of our company,” said Tahari VP Scott Currie. “We are confident that the upcoming arbitration will find all of Mr. Hordecki’s claims to be totally baseless and without merit.”

Note that they “regret” the comments he made about New Jersey but don’t dispute them.

Somehow, reading Mr. Hordecki’s comments, I get the distinct impression that he’d be right at home in the Liberace Museum or, for those special sunny days, on the beach at Fire Island. As my grandpa used to say, “He doesn’t have a spring in his step, he’s just light in the loafers.”

Sadly, his revulsion at Snooki-Ville overshadows the legitimate complaints in his suit. However, I’m sure that all the lawyers will sit down and work this out amicably. I also believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus ….

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!