Memoir installment #22: More from my breakdown

A trip to Milan goes sideways

 I never wanted to go to Europe for the fashion shows, and because Italian—and especially French—advertisers hated Lucky at first, there was no real pressure for me to attend at the beginning. Then Lucky got hotter, and its power to generate sales could no longer be ignored, and the Italians, at least, were paying attention. So I went to Milan, and predictably hated it, hated the whole city, everything about it but the food, really, and vowed never to return unless I had to.

Now, in the fall of 2004, and according to Lucky’s publisher Charlotte, I pretty much had to. She was close to ensnaring a few big new advertisers, so I flew to Milan, knowing somewhere in my gut that that was a horrible idea. Fashion shows and the whole fashion people scene threw me off kilter under the best of circumstances, and this was emphatically not the best of circumstances.