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Red Carpet Diaries: Confessions of a Glamour Boy

Review

Red Carpet Diaries: Confessions of a Glamour Boy



My life as a part time freelance writer and full time mother is
about as far from glamorous as you can get. About as close as I can
come is paging through the latest In Style magazine while
watching The Wiggles on Disney Channel for the umpteenth
time. Steven Cojocaru, on the other hand, lives, breathes and eats
glamour on a spoon. His dishy new memoir, RED CARPET DIARIES:
Confessions of a Glamour Boy, gives us --- the great unwashed ---
some insight into just how someone pursues glamour at all costs,
even --- some might say --- sanity.

Steven Cojocaru is the fashion correspondent for the Today
show on NBC and is also the West Coast Style Editor for
People magazine. This gives him free reign to indulge his
inner diva and wax weekly on the high priestesses of American style
--- a more feminine and much more flamboyant Joan Rivers. Since I
picked up this book in the middle of a dreary winter, I hoped it
would provide a break from both the weather and aforementioned
toddler. While it is wickedly funny in parts, let me say that a
little bit of Steven goes a long way and the book is only 192 pages
long, if you get my drift.

"I am journalism's equivalent of a cheese soufflé," Steven
proclaims after reporting on one of his many jobs. The book reads
as a series of episodes in a "whacked out" (his words) life. If you
cannot recall ever seeing Steven, you should picture a cross
between Aerosmith's lead singer Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger with
Valerie Bertinelli's hair. Oh, and don't mention hair. Throughout
the book, we are treated to an in-depth analysis of Steven's hair
(Cojocaru's, not Tyler's, although that might have been
interesting). I felt like I was trapped at an eighth grade girl's
slumber party. To say Steven dresses flamboyantly is like saying it
is cold at the North Pole: knee-length white fur coats, leather
pants, "white gauzy balloon drawstring pants" and oversize Jackie O
sunglasses. And that was at his bar mitzvah. No, no, just kidding,
the bar mitzvah outfit was more like a powder blue tuxedo with a
blue ruffled shirt. Perhaps this is at the root of his
weirdness.

The book is not all outfit analysis as we do learn a little about
his childhood in Montreal, where he grew up the son of Romanian
immigrants who seem very supportive of Steven and his, uh,
uniqueness. Probably to no one's surprise but his own, little
Steven was often taunted by the other kids who just could not
appreciate the fashion sense of a boy who would wear supersize bell
bottom pants, a clingy disco shirt and wooden clogs to the
playground in 5th grade. He met with greater approval in high
school as he was ushered into the inner circle of popular girls,
because he could dish and give fashion advice with the best of
them.

Fast forward a few years and Steven is still doing the same thing,
albeit on a much grander scale. Starting out with small Hollywood
outlets and eventually working his way up to People and
The Joan Rivers Show, Steven doesn't hold anything back. We
hear who the naughty celebrities are (Barbra Streisand, although it
pained him to have to say it) and who is nice (Katie Couric and the
rest of the Today show gang). I found the celebrity sections
much more appetizing than the treatises on his hair problems and
how hard it is to figure out what underwear to wear on the red
carpet for the Oscars. Did you know they made male thongs? Neither
did I.

RED CARPET DIARIES: Confessions of a Glamour Boy is the book
equivalent of a cocktail party. Steven makes the rounds and has a
few nibbles, but it's really nothing of substance. But then again,
all work and no play would make Steven a very dull, yet glamorous,
boy.

Reviewed by Shannon Bloomstran on January 23, 2011

Red Carpet Diaries: Confessions of a Glamour Boy
by Steven Cojocaru

  • Publication Date: March 4, 2003
  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books
  • ISBN-10: 0345453786
  • ISBN-13: 9780345453785