10 Things That Always Happen at Fashion Week
Excessive amounts of aesthetically pleasing hullabaloo coming your way!
Before today’s story, an announcement: My book ANNA: The Biography, is out in paperback this week. Hello! magazine got a first look at the brand-new afterword included in the paperback edition, featuring reporting on how Anna masterminded that epic photo-op with Queen Elizabeth:
…A notice had gone out previously that a member of the royal family would attend the [fashion show]. Usually, such notices concerned lesser royals, but Anna—who hadn't planned to go — got a personal tip from a member of the British Fashion Council that it would be the Queen.
Read more at Hello! and get the book here.
Fashion week is here again because this is still how apparel brands want to spend a lot of their marketing budget. Thanks to social media, more effort has started going toward general, aesthetically pleasing hullabaloo instead of fashion shows. The point now is to generate social media buzz the way Pharrell did to a point of excess for his debut show for Louis Vuitton menswear. Stealth wealth brands like Khaite and The Row aside, the clothes themselves often feel secondary to such spectacle — who was there, who performed, and what tiny food was served. Frankly, I’m ready to see the Serious Fashion brands embrace more frippery — can’t you see Khaite handing out tiny gherkins on toothpicks? The Row offering mini-toasts spread with colorless artisan cashew butter? Someone serving individual almonds on their own napkins?
A lot of fashion people get fed up with fashion week because, well, it’s kind of predictable. The clothes on the runways may change (for some brands, anyway) but the pomp and circumstance remains the same. As New York Fashion Week kicks off, here are ten things that always seem to happen at the shows.
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1 - A brand with lots of money will force fashion people to go to Brooklyn. A year ago, Tommy Hilfiger got Kourtney Kardashian, Travis Barker, Kate Moss, and Kris Jenner, among others, to Brooklyn, where it rained on the show. This season, Chanel is staging a pop-up in the former Wythe Diner space on Wythe and North 10th Street in Williamsburg to promote a new perfume. Unlike the Tommy show, anyone can go to this (reservations were apparently recommended, but have been completely booked, so walk in if you’re the kind of person who loves long lines). Chanel says guests can “explore all the interpretations of the surprising floral scent.” To be clear, they will not serve any food, but will offer guests menus featuring an array of fragrances so that, after a 30-minute experience, they feel guilty enough to buy one.
2 - Leonardo DiCaprio will enter (or re-enter? assuming he ever leaves it) the midst of fashion week models.
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