Fashion shows would be a lot more fun if they didn't bring out the fashion assclowns. Sadly, most of them do, and last night's was no exception. It was being held at a expensive but sterile hotel decorated in dark plush carpet and thousand-dollar chairs, the kind of place that wants people to think it's an edgy den of decadence but is ultimately just a hotel with nicer toiletries than Holiday Inn. It's the sort of place where eyes look you up and down the moment you walk in, although the staff is unfailingly friendly and polite to make up for some of the guests' snobby sneering.
I was there to interview the lead hair stylist. Talking with stylists about their fashion-show looks is somewhat limiting. They're frantically trying to finish their work while you rattle off the same questions that you ask every stylist: What's the inspiration? How did you work with the designer and makeup artist on this concept? How can people recreate this at home? Beyond that, there's not much to talk about.
Nobody expects a stylist to wax poetic about how he was inspired by Caravaggio or whatever, but it's just the worst when they clearly resent your presence and just want to get back to singeing the birdlike 17-year-old in front of them. And I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a variation on "We wanted sexy hair." Sexy hair almost always translates to long, wavy, and slightly messy. (My hair is only one of these three. Guess which one.)
Crazy structural hairstyles are the most interesting to cover, even if nobody will ever recreate the look for day-to-day life. (Odile Gilbert's fall 2008 Rodarte origami hair is one of my favorites.) Last night's look made crimped hair and chignons look cool, which brought back fond memories of the pink Windmere crimper that I loved so much for making me look like a junior bride of Frankenstein.
But back to fashion assclowns. While there are good people who work in fashion, there are also people who thrive off perceived exclusivity. To them, you're nobody unless you can look down on someone else, which creates a chain of aloof condescension. Fortunately for them, I provided plenty of opportunity for them to do so last night. I hobbled in wearing a gray knit sweater, waxed jeans, Das Boot (as Jen calls my removable cast), and one cross-trainer hugged by this contraption. I also had overslept that morning, so I'd tied a long fringed scarf around my head in an attempt to cover the oil slick spreading over my hair.
Basically, I looked like Axl Rose in orthopedics.
It's not an exaggeration to say that everybody else was wearing black. Okay, so one woman had paired her black with a chartreuse skirt, but she was the only wild and crazy risk taker. Otherwise, the women were all wearing high heels and some variation on the LBD. When I went to the press check-in table, the woman there asked, "Are you sure you're in the right place?" I'm press, lady; we're supposed to be schlubby.
After the hair interview was finished, I thought about sticking around for the free canapés, but Spook was waiting for me at home. On my way out of the room, I made eye contact with a model who'd once written something for a friend's book. She gave me a soft smile, one of the the only ones of the evening, and it made me happy. Happy to know that not everyone in the room was a fashion assclown, but happy to be going home, too.
I was there to interview the lead hair stylist. Talking with stylists about their fashion-show looks is somewhat limiting. They're frantically trying to finish their work while you rattle off the same questions that you ask every stylist: What's the inspiration? How did you work with the designer and makeup artist on this concept? How can people recreate this at home? Beyond that, there's not much to talk about.
Nobody expects a stylist to wax poetic about how he was inspired by Caravaggio or whatever, but it's just the worst when they clearly resent your presence and just want to get back to singeing the birdlike 17-year-old in front of them. And I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a variation on "We wanted sexy hair." Sexy hair almost always translates to long, wavy, and slightly messy. (My hair is only one of these three. Guess which one.)
Crazy structural hairstyles are the most interesting to cover, even if nobody will ever recreate the look for day-to-day life. (Odile Gilbert's fall 2008 Rodarte origami hair is one of my favorites.) Last night's look made crimped hair and chignons look cool, which brought back fond memories of the pink Windmere crimper that I loved so much for making me look like a junior bride of Frankenstein.
But back to fashion assclowns. While there are good people who work in fashion, there are also people who thrive off perceived exclusivity. To them, you're nobody unless you can look down on someone else, which creates a chain of aloof condescension. Fortunately for them, I provided plenty of opportunity for them to do so last night. I hobbled in wearing a gray knit sweater, waxed jeans, Das Boot (as Jen calls my removable cast), and one cross-trainer hugged by this contraption. I also had overslept that morning, so I'd tied a long fringed scarf around my head in an attempt to cover the oil slick spreading over my hair.
Basically, I looked like Axl Rose in orthopedics.
It's not an exaggeration to say that everybody else was wearing black. Okay, so one woman had paired her black with a chartreuse skirt, but she was the only wild and crazy risk taker. Otherwise, the women were all wearing high heels and some variation on the LBD. When I went to the press check-in table, the woman there asked, "Are you sure you're in the right place?" I'm press, lady; we're supposed to be schlubby.
After the hair interview was finished, I thought about sticking around for the free canapés, but Spook was waiting for me at home. On my way out of the room, I made eye contact with a model who'd once written something for a friend's book. She gave me a soft smile, one of the the only ones of the evening, and it made me happy. Happy to know that not everyone in the room was a fashion assclown, but happy to be going home, too.
Labels: fashion week
I have just returned from Fashion Week, which is one of the longest weeks you can imagine. I have a feeling that people envision a nonstop party, and for some people that's probably true. For me, it meant transcribing until 2:30am and being at a show at 7am to cover the beauty trends. (Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel gorgeous like being surrounded by gaggles of 18-year-old models before dawn.) So while it was a productive week, it was also a long one, and I am very happy to be back to my simple little life.
The model above was among my favorites. Every time I saw Bruna, I couldn't help but stare; her face is intriguing, and her nose has a funny little bump in it that makes her face so much more beautiful than it would be with a "perfect" nose. She always looked sad, though, or maybe she was just annoyed that I was giving her the "why so beautiful?" gaze.
Glaringly absent from the runways: Black women, again. It blows my mind that I can attend a show that has two dozen models walking the runway, and not a single one is black. Most shows, if they have any black women, have one or two who are flanked by Eastern Europeans and Brazilians and, occasionally, an Asian-American model. It just floors me that so many shows continue to act as though black women don't matter. It's a sad state of affairs when America's Next Top Model, a fake modeling show, features more women of color in any given season than Fashion Week does.
Labels: fashion week, new york
