Daisy Prince on why hanging out with models during New York Fashion Week makes her hungry . There is no better place to be than New York during the fall and fashion week.
Daisy Prince on why hanging out with models during New York Fashion Week makes her hungry
There is no better place to be than New York during the fall and fashion week. The colors of the city become brighter and sharper, as if the place has been twisted into focus under a microscope. All the new restaurants are booked, the sidewalks are full and the bars are teeming with good-looking, tan people, back from their summer holidays. The New York buzz has started afresh after a summer of quiet.
Except that my summer wasn’t exactly quiet, it was full of bustle. After the hecticness of getting married, I was happy to welcome the normality of fall.
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A brief word on the wedding – it was beautiful. I know it’s a bridal cliché but in my case it was really true. One of the best things about getting married in Newport is that you have a 90 per cent chance of getting hitched on a lovely cloudless day as I did. Another bridal cliché is that weddings pass by in a haze. Mine did, although some bits do stand out, like the arrival of the ice-cream truck I had especially ordered and leaving the reception with Hugh on the back of my father’s Honda Rebel motorbike. We raced off to the beach for a much needed dip before the evening dance. I wore a white bikini with ‘Just Married’ written on it in gold sequins. I firmly believe that brides should embrace their inner cheeseball, if only to add a little zest to the proceedings.
By the way, for those of you who read my last column and wanted to know if the ‘Mayr Cure’ continued to work, I’m afraid not. I more or less managed to keep slim until the wedding, but when the Newport cheese puffs came by that I had been waiting over four months to eat, I practically knocked over four elderly relatives to scoff them down.
Back to New York and fashion week where no one would even so much as LOOK at a cheese puff. Women in New York are so thin that Olive Oyl wouldn’t get a second glance at the New York shows. At these occasions I think that if someone ate a cracker they might be arrested. Despite the stick figures in the Bryant Park tents, fashion shows in New York are fabulous.
Being inside the tents is like being at the best club in town, the atmosphere is so charged you feel like anything could happen. The music is great, the clothes are amazing and the personal style is… hilarious. Everyone is posing for photographs, whether they have anything to do with fashion or not.
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American fashionistas do tend to dress up more for these events than their British counterparts. It is generally held to be true in America that in order to be the part, you need to look the part. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that America was founded by Puritans who firmly believed that there was only enough room in heaven for 400,000 souls. The only way to demonstrate that you were one of the chosen people was to look and act like you were more pious and worthy than everyone else. This anxiety has trickled down to the 21st century. It used to be the case that you had to look the part in order to prove you were going to heaven; you now need to look the part in order to get beyond the security guard.
Whatever the reason for their sartorial obsessions, these butterflies of New York never fail to put on a good show. They always look like movie stars and complete their look with entourages of gay men who are dressed like dime store versions of Oscar Wilde.
My favourite moment (I’m sorry but Fashion Week always makes me a little bitchy – or maybe I’m just hungry) was when one particularly pretty, Grace Kelly-like blonde was picking her way down the stairs in enormously high heels. She had her nose struck right up in the air and surrounded by an adoring crowd, stumbled, nearly fell, and looked around her to see the crowd burst into mirth. She slunk off, looking humbled. It was the perfect New York moment. Now, if only I’d had some cheese puffs to hand…
