Fashion Sense?

A weekly commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney. It was first broadcast March 2, 2003.

Naturally, I was pleased, and I got looking through the magazine. I must lead a sheltered life because none of the women in the ads look like anyone I know.

No one sits around looking like this in the places I go, either. I doubt very much that she's read my book.

One of the best things American women have done for themselves in the past 30 years is start wearing shoes they can actually walk in. Now, here's a pair of shoes Neiman Marcus is pushing that seems like a step backwards.

This is a $650 pair of ostrich stilts by Sergio Rossi. I've never known an ostrich but I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing a pair of shoes made out of any bird.

Celine is apparently the name of a company that makes pocketbooks. Does looking at this woman make you want to go out and buy a pocketbook?

Some of the models don't seem very happy in their work at all. The women they use to sell clothes, of course, are among the few who wouldn't look bad without any.

They advertise clothes for men in Town & Country, too. If I have time at lunch, I may go out and buy one of these for myself. This suit sells for $2,400. Wouldn't you hate to spill ketchup on the lapel of this?

I've never seen a guy put his hand in his pocket like this either except in an ad for a suit.

The New York Times has its own fashion section. It's sort of The Times swimsuit edition -- 188 pages of fashion and sex. This is the cover here. [And on it,] I guess, is the average Times reader.

This is a Versace ad. What would you say if you were at a party and got introduced to someone like this? "Oh, hello. Ah... What do you think we should do about Iraq? Or did I already ask you that?"

She's on her hands and knees selling Louis Vuitton pocketbooks. Looks as though she dropped a quarter.

This dress was designed by Dolce and Gabbana. I'm surprised it took two people to design a dress this small. Of course, the less a dress covers, the more it costs.

I don't see a lot of women lying down during my average day but women are lying in all sorts of strange positions in fashion magazines.

And it's funny, the underwear they're trying to sell here, too, because when they show women wearing dresses, half the time it doesn't look as though they're wearing any underwear.

There's big money in fashion for both men and women even though the best most of us can do with clothes is hide how funny we look naked.