Fall 2017 New York Fashion Week has come and gone; designers, models, publicists, and hangers-on have suddenly descended into my city, taking up taxis, Ubers, and tables at chic restaurants.  My sister claims to have seen the Beckhams dining at Balthazar.  Silly me, here I was thinking Brits had an innate and underlying sense of animosity toward the French.

Anyway, Fashion Week - ostensibly a showcase and celebration of fashion designers' creative inspiration for the upcoming season (actually several seasons out - hence showing Spring 2018 collections in September 2017) - has become, in what I believe by now to be common knowledge, little more than a red carpet walk for anyone who happens at this moment to be enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame (see slideshow, below). 

When I was working in luxury fashion as an assistant (really, an assistant-to-assistant-to-associate-) buyer, I was handed down tickets (which is exactly as unprestigious as it sounds) to a few NYFW shows, where I was surprised to experience a 20-minute 'buildup' (of famous? people taking their seats) to a 7-minute show of garments that would almost never make it onto store shelves, but are instead presented a display of the designer's 'inspiration' for a particular season or, in some cases (and more commonly), a spectacle meant to spark publicity and stroke egos (similar to certain works of installation art today).  

Speaking of famous? people, here's my opinion:

To my disappointment, I didn't see anyone famous (or even "famous") - though in all fairness, the trendsetters of 2013 were unlikely to show up at the BCBGMAXAZRIA runway.  So as many of you well know, being an 'insider' within a particular company or industry inevitably rids you of some (or all) of the rose-colored delusions with which you once began.  I guess a number of Hollywood movies or even a wise adult probably told me that at one point, but I still seem to have a hard time taking either source seriously.

In the New York high fashion industry, I got to witness as lot, at least as far as the 'Devil Wears Prada' checklist goes: the runway shows; the haughty designers; the grown-woman cattiness (the worst type of them all!); and of course, the exorbitant amount of money spent to simply keep up appearances (which, back then, comprised black liquid leather leggings by J Brand or Helmut Lang ($950); rag + bone booties in a very impractical color and usually suede ($500); a Philip Lim sweater ($850) or, if you have toned arms, an asymmetric sleeveless silk Equipment blouse ($250); and a studded/accented/spiky bag by Stella McCartney ($1,950) or Alexander Wang ($955).  See below for what I mean - if you lived in New York between 2012 thru early 2014, you'll probably remember what I'm talking about.

On one hand, it was admittedly really fun to be a member of a very exclusive and chic girl group at the 'upper tier' of luxury shopping (God help you if you were a buyer for, like, Macy's); I somehow wasn't aware of it at the time (though one could support this with the David Foster Wallace speech/book about goldfish who are unaware of the water in which they're living), but industry consensus from the other side of the table seems to be that Saks buyers are haughty, New York rich girls who, despite a penchant for sending rude and misspelled emails, bear gilded diplomas from universities like Georgetown and Dartmouth; and almost always manage to get their weddings (to equally superficial hedge fund-types) announced in the coveted New York Times - before turning 30 (scroll through some pretty exceptional wedding announcements from 2016; click through for link to more).  

On the other hand, I'm not sure I really learned that much in my 2.5 years in fashion (though really, does anyone truly 'learn' anything at a desk job?), at least professionally - but I certainly gained a tremendous depth of knowledge around fitness classes, juice cleanses, wedding dresses, and engagement rings, in addition to being very up-to-date on New York restaurants, nightlife, and sample sales.  My closet is still filled with what is probably thousands of dollars of designer clothing and shoes that are far more appropriate for (and would actually be worn by) a precious, somewhat naive, and scandalously-clad girl like Serena Van der Woodsen in Hervé Leger (minus the cringey vest-wearing Penn Badgley love interest, obviously).  I think the other guy is supposed to be a Dalton lacrosse player: just the type of guy who says things like 'Smokin' hot!').

Though I'm sure many of my colleagues at Saks knew of nothing otherwise, it was obviously pretty great to experience the sense of entitled privilege that accounted for 90% of the personality of the Groton-educated, Serena Van der Woodsen-Upper East Side-type girls at Cornell.  (In reality, I think that at both Cornell and Saks, I was probably more of a Rufus Humphrey: a bit naive, a bit befuddled by the crowd among which I found myself, and mostly just wishing it were okay to retreat to my room and listen to music.)  

By virtue of rolling with a group of pretty, well-dressed and expensively educated young twenty-something girls, it was really easy to get into exclusive spots in New York, where our male equivalents would foot the bill for tequila shots and vodka sodas (the lowest calorie mixed drink, in case you weren't aware).  

I remember drinks at The Bowery Hotel (is that place still cool? anyone? r/fellowkids? Bueller?) with a few members of the 'best' (and therefore worst) Cornell fraternity who simply gave a "they're with us" nod to the hotel's SWAT-level security staff, as we sailed past the velvet ropes while the teeming masses were literally left out in the cold, since it was winter in New York.  

Inside the Hotel, fellow 23-year old girls carried $2,700 Céline 'Trapeze' bags (those were really popular at the time) and talked about fashion and vacations and what was tacky and what was not, as guys (more or less the same age) drank obnoxious pseudo-Mad Men glasses of whiskey or brandy (is brandy a thing?), almost always straight up - if on the rocks (i.e. with ice), the 'rocks' was actually one perfectly formed sphere of ice; the idea being that a single solid mass takes longer to melt and will do so evenly, thereby reducing your chances of ending up with a watery, sad, over-diluted drink.  (Not sure why I included this last bit, but personally I found it kind of interesting.)

One of my favorite spots - I don't think I'd get in anymore - was the Soho Grand, which has a very small, 'secret' (i.e. held the unquestioned right to turn away the plebes and peasants) corner bar, where there was some sort of party for a famous designer whose line we had recently launched at Saks (I distinctly remember seeing one of the Million Dollar Listing: New York brokers in attendance: obviously the true mark of an important social event).  

I happen to like interior design and expensive fine art, and the Soho Grand bar has both: lush, green ferns (which somehow survived in a dimly lit room in a hotel), warm, low lighting (the kind that flatters everyone, no matter how fugly), and several original Terry O'Neill photographs (including the iconic image of Bridget Bardot in Spain) tastefully adorning the walls (imagine making the decision to hang a $40,000 [how do I know the exact asking price?] print in a bar).  

There was of course the routine and mind-numbing small talk with a 'finance guy' in venture capital ("VC"), but upon learning I was with Saks, it was pretty obviously assumed that I was some sort of simpleton with limited knowledge or understanding outside of luxury fashion labels.  I guess the upside was that I didn't have to listen to 30 minutes of humbledrone, but VC is actually pretty interesting and a financial topic that even back then I sort of gave an actual shit about.

As contradictory as it may sound, this piece shouldn't be interpreted as an implication that I regret my time in the New York fashion industry, or that I think less of people happily employed within it.  (In reality, I have my issues with pretty much everything.)  Without question, I was far happier, healthier, and generally better off when I was a third-root (ha - do you like that, nerd?) assistant at Saks than when I was an investment analyst on Wall Street (as I said, nowhere even close to being as glamorous as it might sound).  I met some genuinely good people in fashion and probably even developed better social skills, in some subconscious way.  Despite lapses in judgment wherein I bought things like $800 Louboutins and a $1,250 Gucci skirt (plus extra for custom tailoring), I did end up with some nice things that are well made and will probably last foreve (a black leather handbag by Alexander McQueen; a classic Burberry trenchcoat; a pair of minimalist stilettos by YSL).  

Looking back from that perspective, it seems that, contrary to numerous aphorisms and self-help texts, the material souveniers of the fashion world were ultimately more rewarding than the intangible - the latter including the false sense of superiority; the mental calculations placing a social value on everyone; the persistent fear of not checking off the boxes: the designer closet and well-decorated home; the wealthy, handsome fiancé; associations with the 'right' people for the wrong reasons.  There was certainly a sense of pressure (or maybe only I felt so) to hang with the Dalton lacrosse captain-guys; usually the heirs to vast fortunes achieved through weirdly random, mundane innovations (manhole covers, telephone pole adhesives) and what I now know is universally known as the "My dad will sue!", salmon pants-wearing Eastern Seaboard douchebag.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want my (nonexistent) wedding ~trumpeted throughout the land~ via the Sunday Times, but if the price to pay is an nerve-wracking marriage to an entitled and arrogant Dalton-Cornell lacrosse-playing, hedge fund-managing dude with a peanut-sized brain and frigid heart, I'd much prefer a standard one-liner in the Chicago Tribune or even nothing at all.

. . .

There's an excellent 2016 interview between (original VICE co-creator) Gavin McInne and Cat Marnell.  Cat, in spite of obviously tweaking the fuck out during the entire thing (and now that I'm rewatching it...barefoot?), says some pretty great things about the fashion industry, particularly relative to its 'sister', the magazine industry (click image for full interview):

...fashion girls are a whole fucking different breed.  That brain is, like, something that you're born into - like, I don't even know.  
 

It's just- I mean, they're different people. They really are.