mercedes-benz fashion week s/s 2010: rollercoaster weekend

although new york is in a frenzy with fashion week and the recent vma, some people (=me), are full-time students with homework and a senior design thesis to work on. so while the invites kept coming into my mailbox, i kept sighing and filtered them away because the more i looked at them, the more i lacked willpower to get my work done.

i spent saturday at home doing work, and left at just past 6:30 to try and head to the tents. the very lovely sarah of styleitonline had been very kind to me and worked some magic to get me a surprise invite to the vivienne tam show. (which doesn’t mean that you are allowed to pester her to invite you. she only loves me, ok? …. something like that! hoho.)

anyway, when i got there, for some reason, security didn’t check me and just let me through. do i look special? hahaha! inside, the crowd was seriously intense. there were so many people in line! i’d left my apartment early and thought i’d get there in time, but seriously, traffic was awful with a capitol AW, and i got there at about 7:15.

as i stood in line, zephyr from collegefashion came up to say hi! how exciting to meet someone with such an exotic name! haha. we stood in line together as people shoved at us from all angles. then alex whatshernameandwhocaresshesannoying from the real housewives of america, you know, the one with the gross husband, popped out of nowhere and pushed pass us to get through the line.

erm, eww.

i’ve only watched a few episodes of that show and couldn’t stand her in all of them. to make matters worse, from that second she squeezed past me, she changed my feng shui and my week seriously went downhill from there.

i got my name checked off the list and got in line again to try and get some standing space. i must have waited 2 hours or so, and they were slowly letting us “standing” people in.

but since i received some housewives’ bad luck, the organisers actually let people in until they reached me. then they said, “sorry we’re full, and the doors are closed.”

i was seriously 2 people away from getting into the vivienne tam show.

so sad!!

later i met two of my classmates from parsons, hee and pumi, and we went to tribeca grand to the dazed party, with seven new york and nicholas kirkwood. for some reason, we had somehow gotten it into our heads that it would be some trunk show with nicholas kirkwood’s shoes on display.

how stupid. his shoes were certainly on display, on some flat-screen tv.

we hung around for a little while and were people-watching. it started this whole conversation about how we hardly go out and sort of hate clubs, and we don’t mix around very much, and we’re all sort of introverts, and all the people there were so… fashion-y.

tried to take a picture of the scene, but these two pot-heads were posing for my camera. wtf?

i can’t explain it. but let me describe: everyone was in black. most girls were in clothes that looked the same, most boys were in clothes that looked the same, most boys had on really tight pants, almost everyone was in black (had to say it twice for the effect), most people had jet-black hair, many people had bowl-cuts, and the rest who didn’t, had asymmetrical hair cuts with one side of their heads shaven.

granted, some of them were probably wearing some really expensive clothing; i’m assuming that most were also customers from seven new york, so they really are part of a crowd that is more edgy and fashion-forward.

but still, i couldn’t tell one person from the next. it was a place to see and be seen. everyone was judging (including us), and everyone was being judged (including us). i didn’t like it.

i’m not trying to be stuck-up. i’m not a know-it-all, and heck, i have the weirdest sense of style amongst anyone i personally know. but wow, the incredible atmospheric cloud sent a shockwave that said, “i am better than you so go away.”

we hung around for a while, then decided to leave. on our way out, we spotted susie of stylebubble, a girl after my own heart. i really respect her as someone with a real sense of personal style, someone who might follow trends, but takes it and makes it her own. the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the room.

we introduced ourselves and i was a little happy that susie said she knew who i was and read my blog sometimes. me? lil ol’ me??

pumi looking into outerspace, susie of stylebubble and myself

she was adorable and my friends loved her. she was so nice! it’s great to know that her fame online hasn’t put her nose in the air, and she was really friendly and genuinely seemed interested in knowing what we did at school and how our senior thesis was going. midway through our chat, she grabbed my necklace and said, “i just noticed this! what the heck is it? stay here i need to find tommy (of jak&jil) to take a photo!”

off she went on her hunt, and probably got swarmed by her legion of fans.

we talked and waited for a while then decided we should go off and not be retarded and act like obsessed worshippers. (though i’d have loved to meet tommy. haha!)

anyway. the next day was like déjà vu and not in a great way. i worked at home for most of the day, then left to go watch the custo barcelona show. i’d received a “seat assignment” that i thought was an actual seat.

wrong. so wrong.

it was PR mayhem. i can’t put the blame on the designing house; i was really looking forward to the custo barcelona show because damn, i love the colours and the prints that they use.

but shit, they have one heck of a shitty PR team.

when i got there, i realized that they’d probably invited the whole of new york and its grandmother. there were so many people in line and i was about in the middle with like 300 people behind me. we waited for what seemed like eons, then these 4 stupid girls came pushing past the whole line to try to get to the front. the one american girl said “excuse me” from behind, so naturally i turned my body sideways and moved a little. then i realised that she was leading 3 foreign girls and the 4 of them twits were cutting everyone’s line!

they got stopped right ahead of me where it was really packed. then i realized one of the girls had her fucking skirt caught in her undies! you stupid shithead!

i took a picture on my iphone and tweeted about it. which was really funny because i think about 10 people retweeted it. haha!

don’t fucking push past me when u have your skirt caught up in your cotton undies, bitch! #nyfw

they then decided to sit on the steps next to our line, blocking the way to everyone who wanted to enter the lounge. and then proceeded to complain nonstop about how tired they were, how they’d better get into the show, how cold it was, how their feet hurt, how their heels were killing them, blah blah blah. shut the fuck up!

2 hours go by and i was still waiting in line, and then the word came out that they had closed the show. wow. seriously? why did they invite so many people? why didn’t they have a person counting the number of people in line, and telling us 2 hours ago that there were enough people in line for the standing spaces, so that we didn’t have to suffocate ourselves and wait in line to get in? it was poor organization, stupidity, an embarrassment not only to the designing house of custo barcelona, but also shows the lack of management of their pr firm, asi marketing.

i especially love how they “confirmed” my rsvp and seating assignment a few times on email. brilliant job, you guys, i hope you get awesome reviews. bleah.

with no other choice, i stood around the fountain to watch the show, feeling quite pissed. you can’t blame me for that!

this stupid screen became my "seat assignment". damn you asi, for wasting all our time.

just some of the other cheated people.

from what i saw on the screen, the show looked really colorful and i did love so many pieces. too bad i wasn’t inside to view it in person. as i looked around the tents, i spotted the cute japanese photographer, mari, who had taken my picture from the day before.

my lovely camera skills really show off her fabulous outfit so well! boo.

i found zephyr from collegefashion again, and we chatted briefly before the show ended and sarah from styleitonline called me and we decided to hop into a cab to go to milk studios together for the gareth pugh film installation.

outside the tents, i spotted these two super fab boys!

they are so fab! so fierce! check out those heels! weeeeerk!!

sarah and i hopped into a taxi and sped off to milk. sarah had a press pass so she went on it. i had to wait till it was open to public at 10pm. she came out saying it was scary. hahahaahah! whaddya think?! it’s gareth! he wasn’t going to be showing my little ponies. it was quite funny. apparently, gareth was also walking around inside at the private space. i wanted to run in and hug him.

unfortunately i had to wait till 10. my friend, elahe, met me there shortly after and then more friends arrived. we had to go through the unglamourous public entrance. no gareth. we were not cool enough to see him dammit.

the film installation, however, was quite interesting. i couldn’t quite understand it 100%… i never really understand all these new age and arty-farty short films. there were 4 short films shown on 4 different screens that formed a cube. two of the films i really liked, one showed this guy hanging in the air and he just seemed like he was basking in the light, with the winds blowing at him, and it was all mysterious and kind of dreamy. there was another film next to it that was really of a dark nature and had some climatic scary music. it was like the evil witch in snow white but only non-disney and a little nightmare-ish, surrounded by fire and green light.

i wish i could have taken a picture to show you guys, but the security boys looked big and mean.

ooh.

one of our friends made an observation that everyone seemed to really pretend to be so into the films and really understanding it, but no one probably did. hahha! i love you gareth, but i love your designs more.

here i am waiting for the bus. it was a disappointing day. didn’t get to watch custo barcelona, didn’t get to meet gareth. oh, did i mention i was feeling all sad because my skin has once again flared up? i wear black when i’m feeling shitty. it’s been a while since i’ve worn so much black. and it’s been a while since i’ve gone out without wearing something i’d made myself.

felt hat by ne-net
fesse moi (spank me) teeshirt by kiki de montparnasse
pleated skirt with collar harness by comme des garcons
silver bag (for free!) by cabane de zucca
metallic eggplant leather tabi boots by maison martin margiela

Tagged as: new york fashion week, rant, style, today's get-up