NEW YORK TO LONDON
20 09 07 - 15:06 First let’s set the scene. I’m a veteran of many an NYC fashion week where photogs and videographers, bloggers and reporters fight doggedly in the press pit (a four foot by four foot pen) for coveted access to firewire cables, power sockets and Ethernet connections. Tensions run high as everyone is frantic to upload their stories and pics in time for their publication’s international deadlines. It’s sweaty and as unglamorous as it gets, crouching under another reporter’s armpit to angle your laptop just so to pick up intermittent wi-fi.
London, motherland of land of teatime, Queen Elizabeth and John Galliano forbids such uncivilized displays. Accordingly in the serene enclaves of the press tent there are sofas upholstered with white leather, funky ottomans and zinc-topped bars. It’s a calm haven populated by pretty British Fashion Council staffers offering info and free coffee. There are still the hunched and harried journalists chugging the proffered espressos, but there is at least three feet of space between each of them and no Internet access-related fisticuffs.
Another distinction from NYC fashion week is the proliferation of booths displaying designers’ wares under the press tent. Nearly every collection is on display in the exhibition; each stall is manned by an uber-perky brand rep sooooo excited to extol the virtues of whatever schlock their hoping you’ll write about. It’s like the flea market from the gods. I politely sat through a lecture about a collection based around – as the French shop-lady told me –“airport security, tres chic no?” It included see-through luggage (ok, I kinda get it) and a necklace made of eyelash-combs (I refrained from telling her that last time I checked, the FAA didn’t mind that my eyelashes were tangle-free). It’s inane fashion-ese but journos throng the booths to listen to this ludicrous drivel. Perhaps I’m leaving out a key point to explain this phenomenon: At the end of every snore-fest? Free champers.
Yes, munching on a crumpet, with my wi-fi and bubbly flowing, the British certainly have perfected fashion week. But we’ve still got them beat in cosmetic dentistry.
- contributing fashion writer SARAH MASLIN NIR
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