I've been re-miss in updating, especially when it comes to my column at Just Out. I've been slacking a bit lately, and I need to get better. At any rate, check out my latest column below, and let me know what you think.
Spring/summer 2011 fashion shows have just wrapped up in the major fashion capitals of the world. Looking at the shows online got me thinking about when I used to attend those events. For me, they’re a strange combination of fabulous and annoyance, more so the latter in New York. But that’s getting ahead of myself. If I’m going to talk about attending fashion shows, I have to start with my first one.
Picture it: Paris, 1990-something, and I found myself up front and center at none other than a Christian Lacroix show. At the time, I was attending a tiny photo school in the 11th arrondissement, and the biggest fashion shows in the world were happening nearby at the Louvre. My best friend Julie decided to attempt to crash the shows by pretending we were paparazzi. To look the part, we loaded on as much photo gear as possible and stormed the Louvre. The more brazen of the two of us, I doubletalked my way past two rounds of security; Julie, sadly, got left behind.
I couldn’t worry about Jules because suddenly I was inside the heart of French fashion. Somehow—it had much to do with the naiveté of being 20—I chatted up a British fashion editor and convinced her to give me her extra ticket to the next show. I didn’t even know who was showing—that didn’t matter, I was going to a Parisian fashion show. Once inside, I realized I didn’t have an assigned seat, and back in those days photogs would line the sides of the runway, in addition to the pit at the end. I took a plum spot right at the end of the runway and marveled at the grandiose spectacle before me, which if you are at all familiar with Lacroix, is what he does best.
I freaked out. The clothes were insane, the models were stunning (including the future Mrs. Sarkozy, Carla Bruni), the photogs and spectators cheered for their favorite looks. I wished it would go on for hours. Sadly, though, fashion shows are typically about 20 minutes long, and this one ended far too soon. Afterward, I wandered around the Carrousel du Louvre trying to beg and plead my way into another show, but it was useless. I had used up all my brazen good luck and eventually left the building.
New York was a very different experience. This time around, I was actually invited to fashion shows as a market editor at Glamour magazine—no more conning my way in—but I was amazed at how many other people, professionals, still tried to sneak into shows. Once, while going into the Kenneth Cole show, I ran into a stylist I used to work with years earlier. When I mentioned I was heading into the show she asked, “Well, how are you getting in?”
“Uh, with the ticket I have,” I replied.
“Do you have another? I’d love to get in.”
I was stunned—a working woman, in her late forties if not early fifties, almost begging to get a ticket to a Kenneth Cole show. Just sad. If you’re gonna beg, it should at least be for Helmut, Marc or Calvin (Helmut was still alive and designing* at the time).
Unfortunately, over the past decade New York has led the way in commercializing fashion shows. They started inviting all sorts of random media and sponsors galore. I get some of them, like Evian and Mercedes. But one year, when there was a lounge sponsored by Airborne Express, I knew NYC shows had jumped the shark. Seriously, they couldn’t even get FedEx?
On top of that, it’s embarrassing to witness the way shows in NYC are run: The lines you have to wait on, the lists you pray to be on and the teeny spaces you’re herded through are pathetic. One year I, along with a slew of other editors—all of whom had tickets and seating assignments—were corralled up against each other through a 2-foot entryway into a Tommy Hilfiger show. I was literally nipple to nipple with inimitable Paul Cavaco (creative director of Allure magazine) and super stylish Amy Astley (editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue) trying to get into this show, and I felt bad for them. I was way far beneath them on the fashion totem pole, and yet here we all were, being herded like sad little sheep, all to see what was most likely a mediocre Hilfiger production.
That pretty much killed my affair with fashion shows. I know it probably sounds bitchy and entitled, but fashion shows are supposed to be about work, and now they are overcrowded celeb fests—which is fine. They can have their cattle herding and gross commercialization. I, however, am content to peruse the shows on Style.com from the comfort of my own home, sponsored by Indigo.
*Yes, I know Helmut Lang is still alive, but he’s dead to me. Write me about that or any other fashion question: kevin@thestudiopdx.com.
