Why You Can Both Hate And Love Fashion Week
By Thoughtis
It’s that time of the season again—a time when coke dealers experience a sudden surge in business, when tents suddenly have very little to do with camping and people hop fences, assume fake identities and get little sleep all for a glimpse at the latest trends. It’s New York Fashion Week!
For those who work in any capacity with the fashion world, NYFW (as the “insiders” like to refer to it as. Actually, I just made that up.) is a constant source of anxiety, hanging over them like a dark couture cloud. How will they accomplish everything that needs to be done? There’s just simply not enough time! Any misstep could derail the whole process and then fashion week will be ruined forever! Trust me, I know. I’ve watched enough Bravo television to understand how it all works, okay? For a few weeks, people’s lives get injected with stress, drama and glamour. They believe, for a brief moment, that they’re saving the world one imported rhinestone at a time. Then the circus starts to pack up to go home and people can take a collective sigh of relief, have a sip from their champagne flute and congratulate themselves on a job well done.
If you live in New York, fashion week either means everything or nothing to you. Chances are if you reside in a place like Bed-Stuy and work for a non-profit, the only thing you’ll notice is that there are more tall thin people walking the streets of Manhattan than usual. Hearing people get worked up over something so seemingly trivial may strike you as hilarious, but then you think to yourself, “I bet it would be fun to go to Rodarte or Marc Jacobs…” That’s the funny thing about fashion week. Not caring about it is cool, but if you have even the slightest interest in clothes, you certainly wouldn’t turn down an invite. Why? Because fashion people are like aliens. They have their own language, style of dress, and they’re super fun to observe.
They also know how to throw the best parties. Since fashion relies so heavily on fantasy, the after parties are the closest you’ll get to experiencing a kind of escapist wonderland. Plus, the conversations you will overhear will make the experience worth it alone. That’s one thing you have to respect about fashion people. Even though they may be shallow and have a warped sense of priorities, they’re unabashedly freaky. They like being misunderstood by the public and existing as outsiders. Come to think of it, fashion people aren’t that different from the kids who played Dungeons & Dragons in high school. At the end of the day, they both have an undying love for something that most people don’t understand. Fashion just happens to be prettier, thinner and cooler than magical alternate universes.
The fashion world is like some bizarro land that kind of freaks you out, but you wouldn’t mind exploring. And fashion week is when all of the insane people come together to present gorgeous clothes, feel glamorous and get really wasted. Love it or hate it, you still should think about RSVPing to it.