22 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER30, 2019
1
DEPT.OFMISFIRES
FA SH I O N VICTIMS
T
he goody bags at the National Rifle
Association’s Concealed Carry Fash-
ion Show, which took place, in Texas,
during New York Fashion Week, did not
contain high-end wrinkle creams and
perfume samples. Instead, there were
cannisters of pepper spray shaped like
shotgun shells, camo knives, and cou-
pons for companies such as Packin’ Neat.
About a hundred people had paid forty-
five dollars each to attend the event, which
took place in a Fort Worth convention
center. It was the first-ever fashion show
for Eric, an N.R.A. instructor from Mas-
sachusetts who was wearing a Patriots
T-shirt. He kept a subcompact 9-milli-
metre tucked into the elastic waistband
of his blue jeans, “at three o’clock.” Fe-
male pupils, he said, often asked him,
“How can I carry in tight clothes?” He
had come to learn the answer.
Abby Walker manned a table display-
ing nine leather purses. She is the founder
of Aegis, a luxury handbag company
based in Burleson, Texas. She described
how she used to keep her Smith & Wes-
son pistol in an inner pocket of a Chanel
bag. “Then, one day, I pulled my gun out
of the thing, and there was a tube of lip-
stick through the trigger guard,” she said.
She began designing bags with a “ded-
icated compartment” for a gun.Walker pointed to a red leather hobo
bag, which retails for three hundred and
seventy-five dollars. She showed off the
lining, imprinted with “little glittery sugar
skulls,” because, she said, “every girl loves
glitter.” She explained that, in addition
to a gun, “there’s room for your sunnies,
lipstick, mace, whatever.” She demon-
strated by reaching into the bag and push-
ing the muzzle of a fake plastic .45 out
through a small opening. She said that
she’d never had to shoot from her purse,
but “when I’m walking through dark
parking lots, grocery stores, malls—I’ve
got my hand on a gun.”
Walker’s bags are all named after
Greek goddesses. She pointed to an Athe-
na and an Artemis. “Wait,” she said.
“Diana is protection, right? I’ve got it
written down somewhere.” She’s cur-
rently working on the first Aegis back-
pack. “I’m trying to get the ballistic shield
in it without making it too heavy,” she
said. “It’s a lot of research.” She hopes to
get one to Clint Eastwood.
Around six-thirty, the show began.
Stefany Reese Toomer, a communica-
tions manager for a gun manufacturer
and an event m.c., told the crowd, “I’ve
been carrying concealed for about two
years now, and it truly becomes a life
style.” Her co-host, Chad Vermillion, de-
scribed himself as an actor, a classical gui-
tarist, a former Navy cryptology officer,
and a Cowboys fan. Three dozen mod-
els walked the runway as a few bars of
country music played on repeat. First up:
Asfaleia Designs’ Self-Defense Family
Pack. Toomer described the maroon
satchel as having a “special pocket that
allows you to carry ballistic-armor pan-
els, turning your pack into a shield to
protect yourself during an active-shooter
situation.” She went on, “The magnetic-
closure C.C.W. pockets are designed to
overcome the adrenaline effect, giving
you fast access to your weapon without
fumbling with zipper pulls.” A petite
model swung the pack around to her
front, blocking imaginary gunfire.
A large male model in jeans walked
out in American Rebel’s Freedom Con-
cealed Carry Jacket. Then came a young
woman in Tactica Defense Fashion’s
Concealed Carry Leggings, which have
spaces for handguns against the abdo-
men and in the back. (Vermillion: “You’ll
not only feel energized and slim but
truly empowered.”) A short, bald manwas shot, the “Parks and Rec” crew filmed
scenes with Vice-President Joe Biden,
whom Leslie Knope (the show’s pro-
tagonist, played by Amy Poehler) has a
crush on, and Senator Kirsten Gilli-
brand. “She just felt like the kind of pol-
itician Leslie would get excited about,”
Mike Schur, one of the creators of the
show, said. (Last month, Gillibrand
dropped out of the 2020 race; Biden cur-
rently leads in the polls.) Biden was sur-
prisingly easy to get. “When we asked
if the Vice-President would be inter-
ested in doing a cameo of himself, it was
very instantly, like, ‘Yes, absolutely,’”
Schur said. (Since then, Biden has ap-
peared on one other show, “Law & Order:
SVU.” He gives a speech about rape kits.)
In “Parks and Rec,” Booker has a scene
with Orrin Hatch, the eighty-five-year-
old Republican senator from Utah, now
retired. “We came up with this crazy bit,”
Schur said. “That the two of them had
a Polynesian folk band that they played
in together, and, while Leslie was talking
to them about her proposal to increase
the National Parks budget, they were
also really excited about getting her to
watch them perform.” Booker and Hatch
happily did take after take. “They both
improvised a couple of times,” Schur said.
If four seconds on TV can sway an
election, what can a movie scene accom-
plish? Only Bernie Sanders would know.
In 1988, the Vermont senator (then the
mayor of Burlington) played himself
getting egged on Halloween, in “Sweet
Hearts Dance,” a dramedy about two
small-town couples—Susan Sarandon
and Don Johnson, and Jeff Daniels and
Elizabeth Perkins. A reviewer on IMDb
called the film “A must see for couples
with fading relationships.”
Eleven years later, he was in another
film: “My X-Girlfriend’s Wedding Re-
ception,” starring Debbie Gibson, the
pop star. Sanders plays Rabbi Manny
Shevitz. Martin Guigui, who wrote, di-
rected, and starred in the film, grew up
in Vermont. He used to have a band,
and, one time, at a club gig in the sev-
enties, he spotted Sanders “boogying
away.” In the early nineties, he turned on
C-Span and saw Sanders, by now a con-
gressman, giving a speech. “Bernie’s de-
livery,” Guigui said. “It just struck me—
it reminded me of a rabbi.” Guigui got
to work on a script.
Three years later, they filmed at a
Holiday Inn Express near Lake Cham-
plain, in Vermont. Sanders came dressed
in a blue suit and a red tie. “The cos-
tumer said, ‘You look perfect. Don’t
change a thing,’” Guigui recalled. San-
ders, all business, pointed out some typos
in the script. “And he brought his own
yarmulke!” Guigui said. “That was a de-
tail I hadn’t put in.”
As the rabbi, Sanders gives a ram-
bling speech, touching on the Brook-
lyn Dodgers leaving for Los Angeles,
and “that free-agency crap.” “He nailed
it in one take,” Guigui said. “And it
was so darn funny that everyone on the
set wanted to see it again, so we did a
closeup. And then he nailed it again.”
—Tyler Foggatt