Fashion Week

What else is there to do but listen in on the chattering classes while enduring the endless wait for shows. A sampling of what we heard today:

“Some cop stopped me and wanted to look in my bag and I told him, ‘My God, don’t you know it’s Fashion Week?’ He was like, ‘Okay, go ahead.’ I mean, Jesus!”

“Is that The Sex and The City girl? No, it’s Shakira. Oh, wait a minute, it’s just Rachel Zoe.”

“Do you think Hillary will show?”

“Just get me into the Gucci party! That’s your job! I didn’t hire you because you graduated cum laude for nothing.”

–Diane Clehane

Fashion Week has many of the stylish regulars who break bread (or at least nibble on their salads) on Wednesdays at Michael’s taking a pass today. At the tents ourselves, we found out what top media fashion plates are dishing up instead…

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Fashion folk who’ve grown used to scoring serious swag at the tents during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week have been known to turn their noses up at some of the freebies on offer (we noticed there weren’t many takers for T3 haircare products being thrust at the crowd leaving Monday’s Carolina Herrera show). Forget about cookies (though those DHL biscotti are tasty) and all the newspapers you can carry — how about a new car?

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Here’s a newsflash: all those well-turned out folks flocking to Fashion Week have a lot more on their minds than Michael, Marc and the gang:

A sampling of snippets we caught yesterday:

“I’m thinking about having a kid, but everyone tells me it’s so much work and I’m not sure I can give up my ‘me time.’”

“I told them at the door, please don’t hassle the Fox camera guy.”

“St. Moritz is a long way to go for the weekend, but you should have seen their house.”

“I watched a little of the Super Bowl because I was hoping they were going to show Gisele and I wanted to see what she was wearing.”

“She really does have a great facelift, but she’s still fat.”

— Diane Clehane

Dominick Dunne made his only Fashion Week appearance at Carolina Herrera this morning (“We’re good pals”). Sandwiched between Vanity Fair‘s fashion director Michael Roberts and the unsmiling Fran Lebowitz , the intrepid chronicler of the social set’s crimes and misdemeanors was happy to chat about his latest passion: the Princess Diana inquest. “I’ve been back there twice,” says Dominick, who is filing his latest “diary” entry for Vanity Fair today. “There are a lot of fascinating things that are happening — it just comes out in bits and pieces.” Most intriguing, he says, is the fact that Mohamed Al Fayed’s remains doggedly determined to convince people that Dodi and Diana would have married.

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From left: Project Runway alums Elisa Jimenez, Victorya Hong and Christian Siriano reunite for the cameras
Photos by: Jesse Wright

Friday night’s Na*Be by Victorya Hong show was an exercise in under-the-radar riches: the recently-ousted Project Runway contestant apparently dipped heavily into “personal savings” to fund the endeavor — or at least that was the line the publicist said she could share when we inquired how in the hell Hong ponied up the thousands it takes to stage a show during Fashion Week. Hidden treasure came to mind, too, when we found Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan solo, cooling her heels pre-show in the front row. Itching for some lower tones ourselves after the hustle backstage (fellow Runway-ers Christian Siriano and Elisa Jimenez had photogs working overtime), we sidled up to Givhan to see how her first full day of this Fashion Week was shaping up.

Givhan considered Rag and Bone a standout, and said Hong’s was “somewhere around the No. 5 show” she’d seen that day. Menswear and military looks were early themes, Givhan informed us. That was good and well (note to self: don’t chuck jacket with epaulets into pile of babydoll dresses the fashion gods have mandated we burn at their altar negative-now) but we were more into her take on the value of fashion-centered reality shows. The fire next time happens when would-be fashion assistants go to Elle…

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If the blogosphere held a fashion show (Coco Chanel‘s rolling in her grave at the thought), FBNY wouldn’t win. We wear ripped hooded sweatshirts, ill-fitting blazers and (gasp) khakis. However, when someone says “We’re going to a little party with our friend Marc Jacobs after this,” we’re appropriately impressed. Last night, the crowd gathered at Mr. Chow for a dinner celebrating the fifth anniversary of Fashion Week staple The Daily uttered phrases such as this constantly. (Our personal favorite: “Sometimes there’s nothing like old Dolces.”)

After the requisite cocktail hour, we sat down for dinner across from two members of The Daily sales team, Louis Sarmiento and Bridget Coolick. We were briefly seated next to Catherine Malandrino until someone thought better and moved her to the table with the important people: Daily EIC Brandusa Niro (and her lawyer, Steve), Niro’s “first hire,” Jim Shi, and assorted other editors and fashion folk. The WSJ‘s Shelly Branch and Beverly Smith, who’s offering a “Harlem girl’s perspective” on the ridiculousness of Fashion Week for papermag.com, took the place of Ms. Malandrino and her assistant. We were glad; the pair was much more fun.

After the jump, we hit the after party at Saks, brush against Matthew Perry‘s peacoat and attempt to resolve the deathmatch that is Lipstick Jungle vs. Cashmere Mafia.

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It’s that time of the year again. Starting at 9 pm on Sunday, February 3rd, WNYC TV (Time Warner 25 / Cablevision 22) is once again broadcasting from inside the tents and during the parties for fashion week. From the press release, ”Look no further than Full Frontal Fashion on NYC TV, where hosts Judy Licht, Lloyd Boston and James Aguiar provide nightly in-depth coverage of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.”

(image via clipart)

Swishy magazine editors in Milan’s Fashion Week attending the Alberta Ferretti show and dinner had to brave a downpour. Forgive FishbowlNY for our unconcealed shadenfreude while we relay the following events with a mirthful smile. Fashionweekdaily reports that at the Piazza Oberdan at the Gucci show (nice work if you can get it), traffic for miles stopped. As the sirens whistled, the editors refused to get out of their cars until the doors to the show opened, for fear that the torrential downpour might ruin their crisp clothes, their smart shoes or — dare to dream — their expensive hairdos (Averted Gaze). Marie Claire EIC Joanna Coles, we cannot fail to note, had a rather unorthodox — and pretty saucy — way of getting the doors opened and traffic flowing. From Fashionweekdaily:

”The Marie Claire editor in chief, not to mention feisty Brit, left her Four Seasons-loaned umbrella by the wayside and stormed towards the venue in her Roger Vivier Belle du Jour flats to gain entrance to the 6:30 p.m. show just as most of the 5:30 p.m. show guests had left. Stopped by the security men, Coles was infuriated, pulling one down to her eye level and saying to him in a strict tone of voice (whether he could understand it or not was another question), ‘You need to let me in. You need to let us all in. I’m from Marie Claire in the U.S. Do you know how many credits we give Gucci every year? This is unacceptable!”’

Shortly after Coles was let in. Then, a few minutes late, everyone else.

The ongoing Suzy Menkes-Marc Jacobs feud has ensorcelled former Glamour editor Ellin Saltzman. Salzman wrote to David Patrick Columbia’s New York Social Diary defending the Marc Jacobs show, which was two hours late, from the ire International Herald Tribune columnist Suzy Menkes. Menkes, you’ll remember, told WWD last week ”I would like to murder him with my bare hands and never see another Marc Jacobs show in my life.”

New York Social Diary relayed some of the more incendiary quotes from Menkes’ September 12 vivisection of Jacobs in the IHT on Friday. Saltzman, who is the mother of Vanity Fair’s powerful Fashion Director Elizabeth Saltzman, responded to the Suzy Menkes column in today’s NYSD:

”Marc calls me mom … I have been a supporter of Marc since he was 18. He is a pal of my daughter Elizabeth. He is possibly the most highly regarded American designer. It would be a very sad thing for American Fashion Week if Marc decides not to show in NYC — either his Marc Jacobs collection or his Marc by Marc collection (secondary one).

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