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the i-D guide to fashion week parties
Fashion Week parties can be giddy and glamorous, or compellingly-awful and absurd. Either way, they are usually more fun than a quiet night in watching TV. But to navigate your way through them requires insight, determination and the ability to soldier…
Type 1: Wears an attention-grabbing ensemble to deliberately look preposterous, because being papped at fashion parties makes them whole (and Instagram is their only friend).
Type 2: Wears enviably-amazing designer attire, borrowed from a trusting contact who works at a fashion PR company… and repays the favour by spilling red wine all over it.
Type 3: Wears any old shit and doesn’t care, because they are so super talented and revered in the industry that no one would dare to slag off their unremarkable attire.
Type 4: Wears the hottest look of last season, cannot understand why no one speaks to them (and will possibly never work in this city again as a consequence of this virtually-illegal sartorial faux pas).
So, i-D’s advice for getting ready is to just rock a look that presents the best version of yourself, right now, irrespective of what anyone else is doing.
getting inUnless you are well known in the fashion biz, expect a haughty clipboard-nazi to give you a hard time on the door, regardless of whether or not you are on the guest list. This is a fashion party, after all – potential humiliation at its hallowed portals in par for the course. Remember that quaint concept called dignity? Keep your cool, don’t kick off, or start to sob and wail. Politeness or styling out this temporary discomfort will eventually ensure you are ushered forth. (i-D still laughs at the memory of a famous model and magazine editor laying inebriated on a central London pavement – crying, ranting, and literally shaking with rage – having not been allowed into a well-known department store’s swanky Fashion Week bash).
being hassledThe Security staff do not give a shit if you have a successful blog. The Security staff are not interested in your editorship of a hugely successful international magazine. The Security staff are little concerned by the avant garde implications of that jewellery you are wearing (fashioned from a dead hamster’s intestines). The Security staff don’t care that you go on holiday with Kate Moss every year. The Security staff will not tolerate you sharing a toilet cubicle with your bezzy, or standing near the stairs, or by the stage… or in fact, anywhere. The Security staff will enjoy telling their mates afterwards about what a bunch of freaks they saw at Fashion Week.
being ignoredIf fashion parties are where you want to be, then you had better get used to people looking over your shoulder. No one is so naff as to call it ‘networking’ anymore, but in this sort of environment everyone is hustling and self-promoting to the hilt. Hence, whether you are chatting to someone you have known and adored for years, or someone you only just met, they will routinely stop listening and peer distractedly into the distance – even if you have just told them you have a fatal illness and only three months left to live – because they have spotted someone Much More Important and Potentially Useful To Their Career than you.
dancing?A mega-swanky fashion party will utilise the services of proper DJs, with credible nightclub credentials, to provide the music. A less-big budget bash will rope in some mate of the designer with an i-pod and a fondness for Beyonce tracks, to get the party ‘going’. Whatever, the dancefloor will often remain rather barren – save for the occasional tumbleweed wafting across its desolate surface – as most fashion people are too cool to be seen, you know, dancing at a fashion party. Not always, though. You can usually rely on carefree young interns from magazines, or a too-pissed PR or two, to liven things up with some extrovert faux-lesbian ‘moves’ or exaggerated humpings and comedy-falling over. Most of the rest will cautiously tap their foot and ever-so-slightly nod their head in time to the music, or – especially if it’s a fashion party in Milan – just look bored.
eatingPopular myth dictates that people professionally involved in fashion don’t eat. Not true. They eat very small canapes, relentlessly served at fashion parties by extremely attractive waiters – moonlighting from their days jobs as unemployed actors. These bite-sized burgers and pastries with mysterious bird shit-like squidge inside them do serve a useful purpose – lining the stomach to facilitate the guzzling of endless free drinks, which brings us neatly to the next point.
drinkingExpect oceans of free alcohol at fashion parties, as drinks manufacturers love to co-sponsor such glitzy shenanigans – and the fashion pack loves not paying to get pissed. In fact, hangovers are a badge of honour during Fashion Week – a veritable accessory that defies all seasonal trends. The mega-budget parties will keep serving an impressive array of champagne, beer, spirits and wine until the merriment draws to a messy close. The smaller scale events will offer a limited supply of foul-tasting cocktails, dubious energy drinks and lukewarm lager, which prompts much pushing-in at the bar and associated hissy fits – not to mention a mass exodus in search of another party, the moment the drink supply runs dry.
misbehaving and survivingMore extreme outcomes of such fashionably debauched boozing – as witnessed by i-D throughout the years – might include a usually-frosty faced stylist vomiting very publicly over an elaborate ice sculpture (Milan), a well known gay fashion editor indiscretely noshing-off a hunky male model by the bar (Paris), a PR Account Executive accidentally setting fire to her Lanvin frock with a ciggie (New York), and an It Girl toppling off a balcony and breaking her ankle (London). Newcomers to the Fashion Week party scene might understandably be a tad taken aback by such incidents. More long-established revellers will nudge and momentarily gawp, but have seen it all before and just want another drink. Needless to say, as Fashion Week reaches its conclusion, the most dedicated survivors will be ashen of face, exhausted, possibly burnt, semen-stained, bruised, on crutches, humiliated, in an ambulance, talking even more gibberish than usual and in need of a six month-long detox to recover. By which time they will be ready to party hard all over again at next season’s Fashion Week!