Thank you for your forgiveness, Dear Readers. I was pulled away before I could offer you my traditional lists decreeing the least sophisticated trends of the year past and the most sophisticated trends to anticipate in the year new.

Without further delay, here are the disappointments from 2008. Please return to this space next week to discover what I look forward to in 2009.

Lucinda’s List: 2008 Trends to Trash

1. Jumpsuits – They are coming out in 2009 and we are over them already.
2. Proliferation of Unfortunate Footwear – Those items called Uggs and Crocs are the vampires of the design world. They refuse to die. Normally I do not condone violence, but these shoes should be euthanized, especially since they co-mutated into “Cruggs” this year. That design crime never should have occurred.
3. Fakery – From plastic surgery to press-on nails, 2008 turned glamour on its head and transformed popular opinion of glam into gross. While I do condone Photoshop for tragic photos, I do not accept it when used to transform beautiful stars into appalling aliens. To be sophisticated is to be real (though you are permitted makeup and Spanx to enhance the real you).
4. Remakes – Are we so devoid of original ideas, we must re-do them poorly? Hollywood re-made the classic film, “The Women”, but without the charm or sophistication of the original. I blame the fakery trend for the absence of thought and creativity in 2008.
5. Fast Fashion – True fashionistas would never eat at McDonald’s, so why would they shop anywhere but the true fashion houses? The terrible construction and plagiarism of too-trendy stores is responsible for a shoddy-looking population.
6. Un-Reality Television – There are so many “reality” shows that in no way reflect reality. Nobody I know would ever subject herself to continuous cameras by living in a mansion with strangers to make a husband from a washed-up popular culture figure. The Hills is a scripted bore, but there may be hope with its offshoot, The City, as it heralds the return of the socialite. I can do without Whitney Port, but Olivia Palermo and her ilk deserve more attention.
7. Comfort Food – Apparently potato consumption is up. That means derrières will be down. Nothing is worse for the figure than this thing called comfort food. The only thing that should be comfortable is air travel.
8. Twitter – I do not know what this is, but social networking is unsophisticated. A social network is built on generations of face-to-face family connections. Online friends are neither real nor elegant.
9. Self-Service – Service has always been sophisticated, but has declined for quite some time. In 2008, the arrival of self-service at the supermarket illustrates the lingering death of good service. In the 1940’s and 50-‘s, there were all-service grocery stores and gas bars, where well-uniformed employees pampered customers, retrieving their requests from the shelves. Now we are forced to look after ourselves. This is a trend that has gone on fifty years too long.
10. Recession Obsession – All this talk of recession is boring. It should simply be ignored.