Well, here we are -- Friday, February 20 -- and Fall 2009 Fashion Week has just come to a close, its pearly gates not to open again until summer's end. [Sigh.]
In theory, Fashion Week sounds like a delight: The beautifuls fly in from L.A., Paris, Milan and Brazil, sail-like white tents drape over the lovely Bryant Park, and some of the city's most celebrated restaurants, hotels and bars open themselves up for some of the best celebrated parties of the year. Ah, yes, Fashion Week can be a fabulous time to be in New York City.
Can be.
In reality, Fashion Week is torture. It's champagne, champagne everywhere (prosecco, prosecco these days), but not a drop to freaking drink. At least not for me. At least not this year. Or last year. I mean I get it -- I am a kid from North Carolina with little connection or influence in this city. I'm okay with that. But unfortunately, I'm also a kid who knows the names of all the designers showing their collections, who follows the daily schedule of shows and who knows all the names (and some faces) of the magazine editors and bloggers who man the fashion beat. I get several-times-daily e-mail updates from Style.com, and I fervently check fashion blogs and live feeds (don't judge) from the front row.
Really, I'm my mother's daughter -- I grew up with her back issues of Vogue lining the living room shelves and her shoe collection the likes of which most little girls would die to play in. Despite my sensitivity to the fact that it's somewhat shallow and (probably?) not in good taste to think about Christian Siriano's accessories during a recession, I'm still the girl who will argue that fashion is an art form, and that it is no more superficial to want to talk about fashion than to want to discuss the Impressionists. Or politics. And hey, Michelle Obama seems to agree, so I feel that I'm in good company.
Now, I recognize that it seems silly not to have gone into fashion PR or some other profession that would have allowed -- nay, required -- me to be on the scene, but after I graduated with a journalism degree, I decided that I simply wasn't interested in slave labor, thank you very much. I figured, idealistically, that I would find another way in. Not so. At least for now.
I haven't entirely given up hope that I will get inside one of these days. (Maybe someone will read this charming post and think, "Man, I need to have that girl as a guest blogger in the tents next year.") But I sure as hell am not going to stop trying. And who knows -- maybe there will come a day -- sooner rather than later -- when I'll stop caring. That would probably be the mature, sensible and intelligent route to take. (People who think I should stop caring are probably the same set who tell me I should move to Brooklyn -- or, better yet -- a city that makes more sense, like Seattle.) But for now, I'll keep trying, I'll keep reading, I'll keep writing, I'll keep staring wide-eyed at the pictures of Marc Jacobs neons and YSL pumps...and I'll keep hating that I love it.
Yours,
EL
When I studied in London, there were two establishments that quickly became the sole recipients of my hard-earned (and parent-sent) money. The year was 2005, and the pound was twice as strong as the dollar, but did that stop me? No, not even a little bit. So what were these two locales? Where were these houses of mirth? Easy: TOPSHOP (The Strand or Oxford Street) and Wagamama (Bloomsbury).
