While Poofy Fairy works, I’ve made it a goal to walk around a lot, and to especially not buy anything that I can find in California. I am, of course, making exceptions for Puma, who has a concept store in the meatpacking district, and possibly H&M, which launches its Commes des Garcons line today. (Hey Lulu, they have dropped crotch pants. “Dropped crotch.” Such an unfortunate term.)

After not finding the umbrella I wanted at Uniqlo, I looked up and down Broadway and knocked down national chains like bowling pins: Banana Republic – no, Steve Madden – no, Victoria’s Secret – no – Jesus, why did I come out here? I kept walking, though, and not two doors down from Uniqlo beckoned a funky shop with $150 arm warmers.

Enter Foravi.

Like many savvy retailers, they had huge SALE signs in the window, and I liked what they had at normal MSRP enough that I felt compelled to see what was on their discount racks in the back. Cute dresses, funky stuff. Very Italian. And in between their shelves and display furniture were random hangers of vintage finds. Pretty cool! I personally can’t do vintage, but I can respect any establishment that tries to cater to both mainstream and classic, retro looks.

A stylist in the back saw me piling hangers on my fingers and asked if he could help me out. Normally I’m not big on making people schlep my finds into a fitting room that’s not very far from me, but in this situation, I thought, “Oh Hell, I’m on vacation. Might as well act like it.”

He came back from reserving my room and asked if I was looking for anything in particular. He noticed I chose a lot of dresses.

“Yeah,” I said, “It’s just holiday dress time.” I’m not actually looking for a holiday dress. I just figured a holiday dress was as great an excuse as any to have someone style for me.

I finished finding pieces to try on and headed to my fitting room. He smiled kindly as I locked the door behind me.

I came out in my first dress. It was super cute, and fit surprisingly well!

But, apparently, it was not cute enough.

“Thees dress. The feet is really nice,” he said. “In fact, perfect. But eet’s – if I may – you are a younger woo-mon, yes? Thees dress ees a leetle – leetle owlder.” (He’s Italian. I don’t know if you picked up on that yet.)

I was surprised that he was being so forthwright with me. I expected him to be the typical boutique salesperson, cooing “Oh, it looks so perfect on you! Oh, that’s the one.” I instantly appreciated his critique, and told him thank you for the honesty. I went back into the fitting room to try on the next dress.

As I shimmied out of the Old Lady Dress (which really wasn’t old lady), some lacy black thing came over the fitting room door.

“Try thees one,” he said. “Pleese. Ees more your age, your style.”

I tried on the satin and lace dress, but as its cutout design required no panties (Hey! I just so happen to have a strapless G-string in my underwear drawer at home…) and I have no boobs, it just didn’t work. He pursed his lips and studied the dress’ fit in the mirror.

“Hmm,” he said. “Let me get you shoos.” He came back with some patent leather stilettos with pointy toes. Normally I don’t do pointy toes, too Wicked Witch of the West, but these looked not half bad.

“No,” he said. “Thees one does not wark. I can see you’re not to-tally com-fortable, too.”

What an awesome salesman! This was customer service at its finest. I was being fawned over by an Italian guy who was obviously not interested in me for anything except that I was born the gender he wish he was.

He continued to ply more and more dresses on me. I slipped in and out of three more numbers when he asked, “Tell me. Can I ask? What ees your budget.”

Oh shit, I thought. If I tell him I have no money he’s going to ditch me and that will just be sad. I braced myself.

“I was hoping $100, tops.”

“Under $100, okay.” His face actually didn’t change. It actually looked like cogs were turning in his head to think of what might work for me in that store.

“I ask, beecaws, beecaws my favorite dress in thees store, it would look great on you. But eet ees $400 dress.”

“Yeah…” I said. I explained that I’m on vacation, as if that has ever stopped anyone from spending money, and we continued to chat. He brought me more dresses from the sales rack, and so far we had both agreed that the lacy blue sparkly thing I had tried on was the best yet.

He must have read that I was getting tired of trying on so many dresses. I think the number was six at this point, not including the different sizes and different colors of each design.

Finally, he said, “Plees, seense you are here. Eet ees your vaycayshon. Weel you try on my favorite dress?” It was a total Charlotte fulfilling that shoe guy’s fetish in Sex and the City. How could I say no?

“Sure!” I said. He had been so helpful. Actually, he had been fawning over me for probably half an hour to forty minutes as his coworker catered to all the other customers in the store. And having a youngish looking Asian California girl going in and out of the fitting room like it had a revolving door? Well, that can’t be bad for business.

He brought it to me. It looked like an “anorexic dress.” One of those things that, on the hanger, cannot possibly fit a person who is not a 00. I had flashes of me trying on my first winter ball dresses in Forever 21 forever ago, ripping the strap, and hiding the damaged goods behind everything else that was piling up in the unkempt fitting room. Then darting out of the store. (Shh.)

My Italian Stylist was setting me up for disaster, here. He knew I was a medium, a six or an eight. What ego was he trying to kill with presenting me with this Nicole Miller anorexic dress?

“Like I set. Thees dress is 400-dowler dress. But ees so beautiful. Eet’s my favorite. You must try it.”

I took it into the dressing room. I slipped it over my head. It was not an easy thing to get on. I had to shift my rib cage from right to left to slide it over.

But actually, it looked fantastic.

Oh, shit.

I stepped outside. He beamed and gave me a new pair of stilettos to slip on my feet. He played with my hair. Up, down, half-up, to the side.

At this point, I was still wearing my baby blue-and-red Puma knee-high socks, pushed down to my ankles. He stopped me before my socked feet could get into the heels.

“Plees, for thees one, could you plees take off your socks?”

I did as I was told. And I looked better. How this satin-y rag of a thing even fit me, I don’t know. He straightened out the skirt, pulled and pinched in all the spots that should have been ruched, and mentioned how I could have the dress taken in at some parts. He and I were both absolutely in love with the image of me in this dress.

“Are you married?” he said.

I laughed, “No. Definitely not.”

“But you have boyfriend?”

“Yes, boyfriend.”

“Ahh! If you leeved here, I wood fall een love with you. I falling in love right now! You are my kind of girl!” Whether that meant he could tell that I’m a fag hag, I don’t know, I was too distracted by how the anorexic dress turned out to be my knockout dress.

The dream had to come to an end. To my delight, he continued his great customer service and pushed absolutely no product on me. I asked him if there was an online store, and he said no. He gave me the boutique’s card. He kept making that uber-Italian “okay” hand signal and saying how fine the “Nee-cole Meeler” dress was. “Theenk about eet!” he said.

As I walked out, the other employee smiled a rich smile at me, like he knew my day had just been made, and wished me a good rest of my day.

I walked out into the street with a feeling every person should feel once in a while. Like I had just been catered to and something so fine was made specifically for me. It was a sweet surprise, and so was finding the dress online for 40% off later last night.

Sometimes, you just have to take notes on the things that inspire you for future finding. Damn, my ass looked good.

Have not bought it yet, no. I’m trying to be responsible, though I worry that if I have another episode like yesterday’s during this trip, I may not be as strong.