There is an article in The Huffington Post about how luxury retailers are using the 9/11 anniversary for some subtle marketing. James Mulvaney points to Newspaper Ads such as “In remembrance” from Chanel & Saks, “In Memoriam” from Bloomies, Gucci “remembers”, Cartier “remembering” & Tiffany “Reflects”. From there he goes into a bit of a political discussion which I’ll stay out of. But I must agree that 9/11 feels like the media is treating it more as a holiday than a memorial.

I was lucky enough not to have lost anyone that day. I do know some people who had close calls. One friend of mine who worked on the 88th floor got out by chance with just minutes to spare. Her boss, my namesake, did not survive. On the day, a friend of mine feared she lost her friend. They were IM’ing on AOL, then she wasn’t heard from. For hours…  But she did appear finally. Another arrived at the station when the towers collapsed. She was covered in ash. But alive.

Another friend works on Wall Street & 99% of his clients do too. Took hours to hear from him, but finally, his girlfriend told me he was OK. In the weeks following, he divided his client list with his secretaries and called each one to check in on them. Any time he’d reach the person, he’d say, “Thank God, you’re alive”. His secretary made a mistake on one of them. She said something insensitive to someone whose spouse did not make it. He took over all the calls from there.

The city was a crazy place to be in those days. It’s really hard to describe and as vivid as some memories are, part of it does fade somewhat… Traveling the months after was pretty weird. People in other American cities looked at you differently if you were in NY when it happened. I got calls from Europe checking in on me.

Years later, at various times including the anniversary of 9/11, I brought Europeans to Ground Zero. Although there are no vendors allowed in the area, it was surreal & touristy.

First, there weren’t too many people there on the anniversary. And those that were there were tourists. My guests were shocked that there weren’t more and how few New Yorkers… I don’t honestly know what to make of it, but I do know those ads from the Luxury companies are not needed as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know how the families feel, but I suspect they feel the same. It’s not Valentine’s Day.