nunu

The row is empty; it is still early. A guy with a headset, official badges and company-issue t-shirt sits alone in seat 13. I am seat 12. He has tattoo sleeves. Awkwardly, I sit down and start digging through my bag for my pen, pad and camera. The usual settling in. The tent is too hot and I want to take my coat off. Suddenly I feel claustrophobic, as though I have no space to move about in order to do this. I will disturb the natural order of things, or at least the order of two people sitting side by side. So I sit there, burning up, trying to go about my business. But I can’t check my phone or look at my notebook, without feeling like someone is looking over my shoulder as I do it. Finally I give up on my own private activities. “So, you’re holding down the fort?” I ask him. Clearly this is not really his seat, he is wearing a headset, after all. “Yes, this seat is for Fern Mallis.” Fern Mallis is the vice president of IMG Fashion. I formally met her in Mumbai over a year ago at another fashion week and I will never forget how she found an incredible black and white striped rug at Fab India but decided it wouldn’t fit in her suitcase. So she let me buy it instead, even though I could tell she was very disappointed.

We are silent again and I start scanning the room for flashbulbs. Nothing yet, except for some shaggy haired guy being interviewed. I don’t know who is, which means he’s probably on television. “So have you been enjoying the shows?” the guy asks me. I look at him and hesitate. I can tell he’s quite thrilled to be working in the tents, holding Fern’s seat, watching all the biggest shows. I don’t want to be a killjoy by saying how crappy I think everything has been and how tired I am. I don’t feign enthusiasm, exactly, but I stop myself from complaining and give a canned response. “Uh, yeah…there have been some….interesting shows.” I turn the question back on him. “You’ve probably seen everything working in here.” He nods. “Anything good today?” “I really liked Alexandre Herchcovitch earlier. It was really cool.” Internally I am relieved. Okay. We are on the same fashion page. Liking Herchcovitch, a good sign. I didn’t bother to tell him that I’d already seen that collection in Brazil and that I hadn’t liked it. “Great colors and textures,” I say, which is true.

Suddenly I’m so concerned about protecting this guy’s poor earnest feelings and I have no idea why; I’ve been nothing but acidic all week and not particularly sympathetic. But it is midweek and my stiff posture is softening. I feel guilty for being so negative. If fashion week is such a joke, a parody, a curious mess to me, what business do I have being so serious in my distaste for it? I have become dangerously elitist, a snob amongst snobs. Yet fashion week in the tents represents the kind of vapid faux-populism I have no interest in embracing. And none of those people enjoying it so much are actually working. Maybe I’d be having more fun if I were doing nothing, too. I once viewed fashion as an aesthetic escape plan from the banality of my adolescence. Now it’s starting to feel more like an aesthetic trap.