Back in the pioneering days, when fur trading was accepted currency, having a buckskin to wear during winter was the Old West version of New York Fashion Week.

Then — as settlers realized it was easier to buy fancy threads with folding money than rumble through the woods in pursuit of an irked buck with protruding antlers — our sense of fashion flattery changed, too.

Looking like a “million bucks” evolved into “million dollars.”

Animal-rights activists celebrated (for a moment).

And women and men who looked like a million dollars (without actually having it) blushed.

Laurie Merrill, looking like a million dollars on this Tuesday evening, gasped more than blushed when she gazed upon an attentive crowd at La Fonda on the Plaza.

As executive director and founder of Free Flow New Mexico,

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