Fashion week and red carpets
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This year’s NYC Fashion Week is just over, and while I nurse my galls and champagne headache the circus is rolling out of Bryant Park and the city.
The syplhide models which have been taking over the streets these last two weeks, have packed down their skinny jeans and skipped off to Europe and new fashion weeks.
I’m positive that the average weight of New York City went into a dramatic decline during fashion week. This season you could see more ribs than ever before, rhytmically skimming down the catwalk.
Even so, in Bryant Park it’s not always about who is showing the clothes, as to who will bother to take the trip to show themselves off. The first mail I’ve received in my inbox every morning during fashion week has been a complete overview of which celebrities that have thanked yes to be present at what shows that day.
At the Diesel feature Demi Moore arrived with her cuddly boy Ashton Kutcher. People screamed spontaneously when the couple, hand-in-hand, found their seats on the first row, before the very same people quickly gathered themselves to return to fashionable mumbling. Fashionistas don’t get star struck, that’s for sure!
For those of us with less importance connected to our persons than Demi, Ashton, Paris Hilton or Hillary Swank, a good synonyme for Fashion Week is queues. There’s a queue to get into the shows and a queue to get out of them. The queues before the entrance of the press lounge and at the champagne bar are miles long.
It didn’t come as a big surprise that the queue in front of Roberto Cavalli’s shop opening on 5th avenue strung itself around the corner like a centipede on high heels. Stuck between Italians fresh out of the hairdresser with no scruples about jumping the line, I was in for a long wait. Flashing cameras raised the surrounding temperature of the red carpet when Jessica and Ashley Simpson, Mena Suvari, Jennifer Lopez, Victoria Silverstedt og Tyra Banks arrived in big, black rides with private drivers. Us mortals were still standing in line, covered in sweat. I myself was busy wiping my forehead, regretting that I hadn’t used my newly bought Prada-sandals with banana heels a bit more, while scouting for some friends of mine also headed for the party. They’re identical twins, and use all their waking hours on becoming the next it-boys of Manhattan. All this week they’ve gotten into the coolest parties, without sweating a single drop under their Lenny Kravitz-alike afros. Personally I never got to hear about the parties before the day after. But this time I was invited and ready to bring out toasts with the celebrity elite.
After standing in line for an agitated hour it was finally my turn, and I just managed to spell my last name to a size zero-girl with a plug in her ear, when the boss of all size zero-girls called out:
- It’s full, guest list’s closed.
I couldn’t believe it! It felt just as bad as it must feel going into a designer store where everything is discounted by 70 percent for the next hour, and then discovering that you left your wallet at home. Having stood in line the day before to get into the party of the magazine GQ for more than an hour, then to be greeted with:
- Sorry, bar’s closed, just before it was my turn, didn’t exactly improve my mood.
Kjersti and Randi at a fashion party
Enough’s enough – I had had it with standing in fashion queues and besides my shoes had given me two new galls this last half hour alone. My last fashion glimpse before I turned my nose homewards to nurse my crushed pride, was of two huge afros sliding down the red carpet in a rain of blitz. What exactly do you need to get a foot inside the fashion business of New York? The following day the twins gave me my answer, including two goodie bags with sunglasses and jewelry signed Cavalli.
- Never get in line, they said, shaking their heads.
- Always go straight up the red carpet and pretend to be somebody!
In other words, not exactly the attitude that we Norwegians have sucked up through our mother’s milk. In the US of A, though, everyone thinks like this. Americans are very good at being someone. They love to tell about themselves, what they do for a living and what their ambitions are.
When I took some Spotted-pictures of fashionistas on the street all the girls posed as if they’ve never done anything else but. They threw their hair over their shoulders, flexed their thigh muscles discreetely and pouted their lips.
Maybe we Norwegians have a lesson to learn? Well, the twins did end up on style.com and New York Magazine’s website the day after the party. So the next time fashionistas and other snobs invade my city, I’ll definitely stand ready with an arrogant attitude. I’m lucky to have all of six months’ practice before next fashion week hits the streets.
Text: Randi H. Svendsen
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