In today’s issue:
Lil’ Kim and Rihanna arrived late, and Tiffany Haddish walked the runway as a joke.
Activism at fashion week? Yup, Anna Wintour chanted “V-O-T-E!” in the streets, like some kind of commoner.
Wheelbarrows are ~the moment~.
Some unverified scuttlebutt about the Chanel job, and more.
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At NYFW, Celebrities Do As They Feel
New York Fashion Week is just about halfway complete. It is against the backdrop of a new study showing a “dangerous decline” in the city’s fashion industry that the event had to go on.
Things got off to a decorous start at the Ralph Lauren show in Bridgehampton, where celebrities were treated to viewings of horseback riding, maxi skirts, and Jill Biden, and fed watermelon-feta salad. Presumably sated by the horsiness and tweezer-applied garnishes, and with the understanding that this is something to take at least somewhat seriously, Usher and other stars took the time to say things to ABC like, “That's American love. That's family.” I have been to at least one of these lavish Ralph Lauren displays and can confirm that they are otherworldly marketing events that feel like like trying on generational wealth as though it’s a borrowed sweater of the finest cashmere that has ever existed.
After Ralph, some stars attending New York Fashion Week decided, to hell with rules! Viral moments resulted.
Lil’ Kim arrived to Christian Siriano’s spring 2025 show late on Friday, and strode down the runway to take her seat in the middle of the show, while models were walking. Social media videos showed her walking with two escorts to her seat as a runway model approached behind her, and then the escorts — likely one of them a PR person — scampering back down the runway while the show went on.
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No big deal, according to the press. Women’s Wear Daily wrote, “While the show was already underway, Lil’ Kim swept in fashionably late.” USA Today said she was “ushered to her seat about four minutes into the models walking down the runway. Her entrance wasn't exactly subtle, try as they might: Kim rocked a floor-length gold lamé coat, a gold bustier with black lacing and black lace tights.” Vogue skipped mention of her arrival, noting the room was “filled with black tie-clad showgoers like Selma Blair, Cyndi Lauper, and Lil’ Kim.” In an “exclusive,” Page Six tells us that Siriano “was forced to start without the rapper sitting in the front row after organizers learned she’d be 45 minutes late.” Siriano had a 4:30 p.m. start time, and “[m]odels hit the runway at 5 p.m. and — to Kim’s credit — she managed to show up three minutes earlier than expected. Still, she arrived midway through Siriano’s NYFW showing.”
The story continues, “We’re told” — by which rep? I do wonder! — “the ‘Crush on You’ rapper couldn’t have been more gracious — and left the fashion crowd in awe.”
As Friday night progressed, the fanciest people in town gathered in the Guggenheim Museum for Alaïa creative director Pieter Mulier’s New York Fashion Week show.1 These included Rihanna2, who arrived at 9:08 for an 8:30 scheduled start time after attending the Daily Front Row’s Fashion Media Awards, where her stylist Jahleel Weaver received an award. Here’s how Vogue explained what it was like as they sat there waiting impatiently:
A Wall Street Journal reporter leaned over and whispered one word: “Rihanna.” She'd heard from her seatmate who'd heard from a photographer outside. “Who else could hold up this room?” she correctly observed.
…Preceded by a flying V of security, in walked Rihanna, or rather she glided across the terrazzo floor. Clutching her custom Alaïa crystal mesh dress across her chest like Botticelli's Venus emerging from the shell, the nautilus of the Frank Lloyd Wright interior rising above her, the mononym queen appeared like a siren fresh from a shimmering sea.
I could be mistaken, but in the video in their post, it looks like Anna Wintour — who was annoyed by Naomi Campbell being allegedly late to collect an award last week — looked on with an ever-so-slight approving smile.
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Devoted Back Row readers will recall the first Monday of May in 2023 when we sat collectively glued to our Met Gala livestreams after 8 p.m. ET, wondering why it kept going when there was no one on the carpet and the hosts were struggling to come up with something to say (“Getting to talk to the designers was so fascinating,” was a quote). The reason was Rihanna, and they were waiting as long as they could before they finally ended the nearly three-hour show (Rihanna arrived around 10 p.m.).
Many outlets covering the Alaïa appearance noted that, well, Rihanna just does this!
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