Water, (Designer) Water Everywhere
Forget about Swatch watches, “Wall Street” suspenders or braided-yarn friendship bracelets. The most intriguing accessory to come out of the ‘80s is the Evian water bottle.
Water does a body good, and if you don’t believe it, just gaze at those sexy, muscular, minimally clad men and women in the Evian ads. Of course, real-life water bodies--those people you see running around town with their own portable water--deny they’re doing anything chic or trendy. They’re just working on another aspect of fitness.
“I won’t drink tap water because I don’t trust it. I want to look after my body, which is probably getting destroyed from the air anyway,” lamented actress Marla Garmire, on her way out the door of a Los Angeles health club, empty Evian bottle in hand.
Leaving another health club, Jon Doyle, a 35-year-old sales rep, had an empty bottle at his side. It was an Evian container, minus the label, refilled with water from his home supply of Hinckley & Schmitt.
Where else does Doyle take his plain-wrap accessory? “On the road. On the golf course. And certainly to the beach. When was the last time you drank water at the beach?” he demanded to know, adding he was turned off by its taste.
At UCLA, the campus is frequently awash with bottle-brandishing students.
Senior Tawnya Southern, who had just topped off an aerobics workout with a bit of Canadian NAYA, explained that carrying your own water around “shows you care about what you put in your body.”
For 21-year-old Janine Arena, it solves a threefold problem: “I don’t like diet drinks because of the chemicals. Juice has too many calories and L.A. tap water tastes awful.” As for 17-year-old Roy Ahn, he said the smell and taste of chlorine in the city water supply drove him to drink from supposedly purer sources.
Having gained acceptance in the ‘80s as an accessory, the water bottle is not about to disappear. In fact, a survey by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power indicates the CYOB (Carry Your Own Bottle) trend is on the rise.
But company spokeswoman Mindy Berman insists customers needn’t worry about city water, which “meets all state and federal standards and is completely safe to drink.” To spread the word--and get residents back on tap--DWP has launched a public information campaign that includes one sobering detail: Designer drinking water costs 800 times more than old-fashioned H20.
