“Antithesis” is a strong word, usually reserved for grand concepts and ideas. And yet, it is the only word that adequately sums up my personal relationship with the phenomenon that is Kim Kardashian West.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Kim. (Can I call her Kim? Has she officially reached mononymous fame?) In fact, all evidence suggests that she is a lovely person, all poise and grace and manners. Blame it on years spent writing about effortless French style, but I simply have a hard time relating to her unapologetic brand of sex appeal, with its accompanying lifestyle so vastly different from my own. Where Kim enjoys luxury vacation by private jet, I go for adventurous travel by plane-train-bus triathlons. Where Kim’s makeup routine consists of something like 50 steps, mine tallies up to five at max. Where she is comfortable “owning her sexuality” (whatever that even means), I am constantly trying to downplay mine. And yet, wasn’t it Neale Donald Walsch who once said that life begins at the end of one’s comfort zone? Curious to see what was in store for me on the other side, I decided to test out a Kim K.–inspired outfit—on a date, no less.
