Gap is Sexy. I Get It!

I am on my way with my French professor and a couple of other students from the LCB wine management program to "pick" our uniforms for the first ten-month course at LCB. The pre-designated uniforms were vetoed (insufferably rejected).

Twenty students, ten women and ten men, international students from fourteen different countries and ages ranging from twenty-one to sixty are expected to wear matching suits.

First of all, wearing a uniform to school, as a mom and midlife gal is, well, somewhat daunting. Nonetheless, we find our uniforms at Gap on Rue du Commerce. I am one of the models of the uniform. My professor assesses me while I stand in front of him with the suit on.

"The shoulders need to be taken in, the jacket is too tight, and the blouse is too low cut," he says. Really? How sexy can a black suit from The Gap be? "It must be modest, chic, and practical," he says. The women of the pilot wine management program at Le Cordon Bleu must be appropriately attired representing the world of French wine.

Needless to say, and despite the clothing expedition, the moment of my vision comes when my lovely professor and I walk miles to the clothing store and he asks me in his enchanting English laden with a French accent, "You write book about wine growing and you know about wine, why you here?"

I laugh to myself at his blatant honesty. "Monsieur R.," I say, "I am here because I realize that I, and California, and the world of American wine, do not know everything there is to know about wine because we are just too young," I say. "I want to take the Old World of wine back to the New World and I want to teach what I have learned."

He has a big smile on his face as he yells, "YES, I get it!"