The Fashionista Files (36 page)

WHO’S WHO AT THE SHOWS AND WHERE THEY SIT

Seating politics is serious business at the shows. Production companies and PR firms work literally twenty-four/seven to get it together, chomping down pizza, sipping Red Bull, and staying up all night to figure out who to seat where (can’t put this person next to this person because they hate each other, and—oh, my God!—what about Carine from Paris? At the eleventh hour she hasn’t a seat, and that is a major faux pas and grounds for immediate firing). It’s very tricky, getting it all right. It is a time of catfights, cutting remarks, painful tears, and dirty politics. Seating charts go back and forth from designer to PR company to fashion show producers until everything is right . . . and even then, things change at the very last second. Editors have stabbed other editors in the back with a ballpoint pen over seats. Luckily, it’s usually Montblanc.

Front row Editors in chief of major magazines (Vogue, W,
Bazaar,
etc.) and their offspring (Anna Wintour’s daughter Bee gets front-row every year); fashion and creative directors if they’re very A-list; buyers from major department stores (Barneys, Bloomingdale’s, Saks, Bendel, etc.); celebrities (Britney Spears, Sarah Jessica Parker); socialites (Nan Kempner, Aerin Lauder); crashers (notice them by their shifty eyes and not-quite-Manolo shoes!).

Second row
Fashion directors/senior fashion editors from national newspapers and major local newspapers (the
New York Times
and the
New York Post
), however, editors in chief and style directors from the
New York Times
get front-row props.

Third row
Regional papers; associate editors; fashion assistants.

Fourth row
Small local papers; small boutique buyers that don’t have premier status in the biz; corporate sponsors.

Fifth row
The designers’ families.

Standing
FIT students; any of the above if there are more of the first- and second-row people—i.e., Puffy bumps down the accessories director, who bumps down the assistant, who bumps down the regional paper . . . and so it goes. . . .

FASHION WEEK ON THE WEST COAST... AN OXYMORON?

Rocking the House
MELISSA

I was skeptical about the whole notion of Los Angeles Fashion Week. I mean,
c’mon.
First of all, there is no such thing as weather in Southern California—it’s a breezy, sunny eighty degrees every day, even in the middle of January. When it rained in Silver Lake, it was actually on the news.

“John Smith, caught off guard by the rain,” flashed on the television set, as confused Angelinos confronted the cloudy skies. Since there’s no opportunity to wear crocodile boots, tweed and fur coats, or even high heels, what passes for high style in La La Land is simple: Juicy sweats, Ugg boots or wedgies, wraparound sunglasses. The men climbing out of Bentleys wear tracksuits instead of Armani.

The first sign that I wasn’t in Manhattan anymore (Toto!) was that everyone at the Smashbox Fashion Week (held at the groovy Smashbox Studios in Culver City) was given a free goody bag. Now, in New York only registered members of the press merit the overstuffed freebie. But in LA anyone could walk to a booth marked, helpfully, GIFT BAGS, flash an ID, and waltz off with one. It was very democratic.

The second sign was that there was free booze for everyone. Absolut set up vodka bars, and everyone was milling around drinking. In the Big Apple, the champagne is reserved for those privileged enough to be invited to the Moët & Chandon lounge.

Next, most of the models walking the shows were Hollywood progeny. Kim Stewart (Rod’s daughter) and Jake Sumner (Sting’s son) at Rock & Republic, Malcolm Ford (Harrison’s son) at 2BFREE, and so on and so forth. But what really struck me as purely Los Angeles was the way the crowd responded to the fashion shows. Instead of sitting quietly and clapping tepidly after a presentation, the crowd hooted, stamped their feet, and actually cheered the models on the runways, calling their names.

I was appalled. This was no way to conduct a fashion show! I kept my New York face on and frowned. Then I remembered one of the first fashion shows I attended. It was for a major designer— and this was in 1994—when supermodels still walked the earth. RuPaul was sitting in the front row, and whenever someone walked out who was truly divine (Kate, Naomi, Christy, Helena), she would stand up (all six-six of her) and snap her fingers and yell, “Work it!” The kids in the rafters (where I was standing) loved it. I cheered and hollered along with everybody. The models were stars. The show was fun. It was electric and crazy.

When the models from Rock & Republic slipped on the beer that they were spilling on the runway, a laugh went up, but when one dusted off her butt (not hard, considering the skirt barely covered it!) and continued her walk, the crowd erupted in cheers worthy of an NFL football game. I found myself standing and yelling as loudly as the rest of them. The excitement was contagious.

The Fashionista Poker Face

At fashion shows no one ever smiles. No one cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of the celebrity surrounded by flashbulbs. Everyone is too cool and above it all. Here’s how to master the proper show gaze:

Whatever you do, never clap enthusiastically. Once you reach fashionista icon status, like Polly Mellen (former creative director of Allure), feel free to cartwheel down the runway in joy. Otherwise, a tepid two-finger clap will do.

Keep your face straight. Never show them what you’re feeling. No gasping. No choking. No rolling eyes. Fashion is a serious business. Show the designer some respect.

No smiling. No nudging your seatmate. No having fun. (If Derek Jeter is nearby, however, it’s okay to ask for an autograph for your boyfriend/husband/son/nephew—or a phone number. Even the editor in chief of
Marie Claire
has done so.)

Complain. Endlessly. Fashionistas
always
complain about Fashion Week. The tedium of going from show to show, how there is never anything “new” on the runways, how terrible to see all the same people and their attitude again. Part of the fun of going to Fashion Week is being privileged enough to complain about having to cover it, as if someone is forcing us to drink champagne, gobble down canapés, and take cabs all over the city. Right. We know we’re ridiculous, but if you’re part of the tribe, a jaded attitude is par for the course.

FROM THE SIDEWALK TO THE CATWALK

Lessons from a Runway Master
MELISSA AND KAREN

Drew Linehan, a thirty-something flaming fashionista with a razor-sharp wit, short-cropped white hair, pale ice-blue eyes, and fantastic Prada shoes, is a casting director for runway shoes. A former antiques dealer, he moved to New York and fell sideways into fashion. “I didn’t even know this kind of job existed!” he says.

He cast a DKNY men’s fashion show as his first job and got hooked immediately. Few can resist the charms of the fashion world—a curse and a blessing at once. After stints at casting powerhouse Bureau Betak (the company responsible for the book
FashionCues by Bureau Betak,
which published the designers’ directives to models, like “Glamorous, but not modely!” and “Keep your look deep and intense with your eyes forward directly ahead of you” and “You’re at your lodge in Montana. . . . It’s chilly . . . but you’re wrapped in cashmere!” and “Gentlemen, for the swimsuit finale, please wear your willie down!”) and doing shows for the likes of Michael Kors, Drew went on to be a modeling agent at DNA.

“I had to babysit some fourteen-year-olds making ten thousand dollars a day and hear them complain!” he gossips. The models would whine that they were missing the prom or a date—normal teenage lives. “They never realized how special they were. This is a tough, tough industry. If you’re working and in demand, you have to be committed,” he said.

He was an editor at
Mirabella
and
Marie Claire
before starting his own production company, Trew Productions, where he now casts eight shows in New York, as well as the new LA Fashion Week and Bridal Week. And he also hosts lectures on modeling for a thousand to fifteen hundred wanna-be models at a time, and judged the Miss USA pageant!

In the business, there are four thousand working models and only thirty jobs per day. “We’re always looking for perfect shape, perfect skin, perfection. It’s an image,” he explains, adding that he sees one thousand five hundred wanna-bes a day when he is scouting and finds only twenty-four or so with promise.

One of his funny anecdotes: “I did this designer Atil Kutoglu— some fabulous Turkish designer. I told all the girls he used to work for Helmut Lang so they would walk in his show.”

Did he?

“No!” he says gleefully. “But that’s the business. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

In the name of “doing what you have to do,” he gave us catwalk lessons in order to perfect our sidewalk presence. (He did it for Joan Jett; he can certainly do it for us.)

“Modeling is in your head. You’re going out there to the most important editors, the most important magazines and newspapers. You’ve got to sell the clothes—no, you
are
the clothes! You’ve got to make it work! Make them want you! Make them want to be you!” was tip number one.

Second tip: “Feel the music. Walk to the rhythm. Be one with the beat.
Don’t
prance.
Be a show pony, but don’t look like you’re trying to be.” Then, pause at the end of the runway, as if you’re saying, “Yeah, you want a piece of me,” swivel your hips to the side, pivot your feet, and turn around to go back to where you came from. “Leave them wanting more,” he said.

Easier said than done!

The Melissa!

The Melissa!

I like to slink, shuffle. As many have pointed out, I can’t even walk in the many pairs of four-inch heels I own. I have flat feet and a duck walk (toes pointed out). I strap on my five-inch Saint Laurent heels and look to Drew for guidance. “Can I do the thumb hook?” I ask, looping my thumbs on my belt loops.

“Whatever makes you the most comfortable!” he encourages.

The office in Soho, where we’re practicing, is filled with people on the phone. No one is looking at me, but as I begin to make my way across the room, from the racks of clothing to the big bay windows, the atmosphere is suddenly tense. Walking like a model is commanding the room to look at you, to make your presence known. I was struck with stage fright. I couldn’t do it.

“Shoulders up. Attitude, attitude,” Drew yelled.

After two attempts, he suggested I try it in sneakers! I go again. In Adidas, I’m much more on my game. I pull off the hip swivel. Left, right, I’m on fire. I imagine that the cameras are flashing and I’m dating Leo DiCaprio! I work it! Hooray!

Karen joins me on the “runway” and we high-five each other in the middle, just like we’ve seen real catwalk mavens do. It’s exhilarating. We’re actually having fun! This is what modeling is all about.

The Karen!

The Karen!

I actually thought the walk would be easy at first. I’m a flashy kind of girl. I like attention, I admit (must be because of some of the positive affirmation I lacked in childhood). I like to think I have the soul of an actor and that I can become anyone I want if I try real hard.
Wrong!
The second I begin my stride, I crack up. I cannot keep a straight face while my walk is being judged. I don’t have the most beautiful saunter to begin with. I drag my heels and tend to put most of my weight on the outer edges of my foot, as evidenced by the way all my shoes are worn down on the outside edge rather than in the center. I swing my arms ungracefully. And I have a bit of a forward shoulder posture, which, I’ve been told by more than one massage therapist, makes me look older than I am.

“You didn’t realize you’d have such a hard case on your hands, huh?” I say to Drew. He tells me to make a concerted effort to lift my feet more. At first I lift them so much, he laughs. “You’re not mountain climbing, remember.” Three more tries and I nail it. Then we focus on the shoulders. I put my yoga practice to work and do what I do when I’m in triangle pose—I melt my shoulder blades down my back. “Yes, you’re taller. I feel it,” he encourages. “Now, pretend you’re making eyes at the hottest guy across the room,” he suggests. I imagine my boyfriend across from me and put on my sexiest stare.

“Bigger steps and you have it,” Drew says. The second I take bigger steps, I drag my feet again and the whole walk is lost. “Attitude, attitude. Remember it’s all in your head. Everyone wants you. Everyone wants to be you,” he says.

Try as I may, I just can’t imagine such a thing. And we double air-kiss good-bye. As I leave the office, he shrieks, “That’s it!” I wasn’t even trying that time—and he says I’m 70 percent there: “That’s huge for a civilian!” He told me I have to perfect my attitude more. And I’ve been working on it ever since.

Walk This Way

Stride. Walk in time to the music—even if it’s just the sound track you hear only in your head.

Keep your hips loose.

Don’t swing your arms too much. Hooking a thumb into your jeans pocket is acceptable.

Shoulders back, but not parallel to the floor.

Don’t drag your feet—lift them but not too much. You don’t want to bend your knees so high that they hit your chin. Only Gisele can get away with that.

You are a diva! You are a goddess! Feel the energy of the crowd and let it inspire you.

End-of-runway poses:

The hip swivel—At the end of the runway, shift weight from one hip to the other. Then pirouette. Make sure your head is the last thing to turn.

The cold shoulder—This is the current favorite by designers. When you begin your pirouette, turn the shoulder first. Then turn your head.

The Tyson—Male models are usually instructed not to stop at the end of the runway, and just to keep walking, slowing down a bit at the end for the cameras, then turning away.

Supermodel, Work!

MODEL WALKS TO EMULATE

The Gisele!—High knees. The big tromp. Clomp, clomp, clomp like a Clydesdale pony.

The Carmen!—A little shake. A little jiggle. Lots of sex appeal.

The Erin!—Sideways head. Very sportswear.

The Shalom!—Old-school style, full-on swayback. Walking as if you’re the backslash key on a computer keyboard.