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Fashionistas treat Fashion Week like the Olympics. There’s drama, there’s action, there’s. . . weariness. And while our athletic performances—for example, riding a speed bike for a parade around the city in stilettos—are on par with those that took place recently in Paris, they are our war stories and our penchant for dramatizing them. make comparable entertainment.
This year’s Vogue Forces of Fashion conference, which will take place on October 16, will pay tribute to the show. Ahead of time, in the office, we started sharing some of our favorite Fashion Week stories, from our favorite exhibits to how we used to sneak into them before Vogue. To get everyone in the mood, we made the decision to also ask those around us their most productive stories, starting with the publicists, the invisible force behind some of fashion’s most iconic moments. Here, we asked Eight PR to share their craziest and most unbalanced stories—well, at least the ones that can be officially told.
Opening ceremony, fall 2016.
The collection was based on the paintings of Syd Mead, the conceptual artist who created the crazy utopian sci-fi cityscapes for Blade Runner and Alien. For the set, Desi Santiago designed amazing giant inflatable spaceships based on her paintings. There were probably about fifty of them, the size of ships, on the ground, in the air, that’s all. Air had to be constantly pumped into them to keep them ripe, and just as we were about to open the doors, the generator exploded and everything completely deflated. I’m talking flat tarps on the floor and fluffy balloons hanging from the ceiling.
We had another 700 people waiting: Charli XCX, Jaden Smith, any and all major editors you can think of. Luckily, the exhibit area was behind a giant garage door, so no one knew what was going on. It was Valentine’s night, so some visitors were annoyed by the wait and went to their appointments. For each and every one of those who stayed, thank goodness we had a beer sponsor. . . I turned into beer and started putting them in the hands of each and every one. We had a party so that each and every one of them would be waiting. Bravo for Tiger beer.
I don’t forget about our amazing production team going through everything to fix the electrical, but nothing. We told them that we could not wait any longer and that they should recite one last Hail Mary to replace the fuse. Either that would solve it or the user who did it would be electrocuted. The environment went from being a relatively minor twist of fate to something potentially very dangerous.
They turned the transfer and just as the door was lifted to let everyone in, the set began to come alive. They were all gagged because they thought it was part of the program. At that moment more than an hour had passed, it was a stampede of drunks and the plane of the seats went out the window. I don’t forget to put the substandard Twin Shadow in a third-row seat because that was all that was left. But it was like a big component. Jacky Tang asked Teengirl Fantasy to make the music, I think the group is still on Soundcloud. Back then, all OC was simply gold; in fact, there was an indescribable electric and unpredictable energy that I only felt at fashion exhibitions in New York. However, the next day we had to apologize to many other people. And if you look at the images carefully enough, there are one or two spaceships holding on to survive, haha.
John Galliano, Fall 2001 Ready-to-Wear.
John Galliano, Fall 2001 Ready-to-wear.
When I started my career at John Galliano racing for his namesake home, we were a small team. A few nights before the exhibition (it must have been in the ’90s, or maybe 2000), John’s right hand walked into the press workplace and asked who could sew. I did it because my sister had shown it to me and she told me “perfect, I’ll be right back”.
He came back with some [things] to sew a dress on him and I ended up running over him as I finalized the seats. I think the look I worked on was a 29 or 34. . . I don’t remember. It was a wonderful moment and I felt like a circle of relatives at the time, so I never thought it was a weird request!
New York has a way of marking time not only through years, but also through moments and milestones. I came to the city in 2005 and spent the first five years freelancing for various established PR agencies in New York, Paris, and Milan. I found myself performing on some truly iconic occasions: Marc Jacobs’ performances and decadent after-parties in New York, Alexander McQueen’s performances in Paris and Milan, a Gucci occasion at the UN where I shared a cigarette with one of my Hollywood crushes, Calvin Klein’s 40th anniversary party on the High Line before its official opening, and a Prada event at Rem Koolhaas’s store in Soho, where I accompanied – absolutely stunned – David Bowie through the crowd. At the time, I was too young and too enthusiastic to master the gravity of those moments. They were just works, stimulating but ephemeral.
However, one occasion remains etched in my memory, transcending the others: the spring 2011 Tom Ford fashion show. It was 2010 and I had just presented REP, my agency. This would be my last independent work and would be a great fitting finale. I knew that running on a Tom Ford screen was big, but the true magnitude I didn’t realize until I got to the Upper East Side store early in the day. They asked us to return our phones, which is unconventional but not unusual for privacy reasons. The production team showed us around the room, then I saw the exhibit board and had to look twice. Instead of models, Ford brought together “the world’s most inspiring women” to create its collection, which included Lauren Hutton, Daphne Guinness, Julianne Moore, Rita Wilson, Beyoncé, Karen Elson, Stella Tennant, Daria Werbowy and Amber Valletta. Array Carolyn Murphy, Marisa Berenson, Farida Khelfa, Lou Doillon, Rachel Feinstein, Emmanuelle Seigner and more.
The atmosphere that day was strangely calm and happy. Watching these everyday women interact, laugh and celebrate Mr. Ford was a spectacle in itself. His personal involvement and meticulous attention to detail have been informative and inspiring. Mr. Ford had invited only one hundred visitors and a single photographer, Terry Richardson, to the hallowed area of the exhibition. That day is etched in my memory, a testament to the magic that unfolds when fashion transcends mere promotion and becomes a birthday party of art and life.
Marc Jacobs, spring 2008.
Marc Jacobs’ exhibitions in New York, over the years, have become, in fact, the epitome of the most exciting exhibitions, but also the ultimate exhibitions of “anything can happen”. Marc and Robert Duffy [co-founder and president of Marc Jacobs until 2015] were very inclusive of their audience, and it was such a glorious delight to see other people from other backgrounds come together. But it also meant that the exhibits included between 400 and 2000 more people. friends, which was crazy. It wasn’t about saying no to other people, it was about allowing everyone around the logo to combine for those monumental events. That’s not the truth of what everyone can do now. At that time, it was with those aluminum bleachers that you would place in a sports hall or on a soccer field. Every season, I was afraid that they would collapse with so many people on top of them!
Then came this epic display that began at 11 p. m. I never will. It was stressful and I don’t forget being told about in Women’s Wear Daily magazine. Bridget Foley wrote it down and she was setting the stage and telling them that everyone was waiting and asking questions about what was going on, and I was there. I was afraid that I would be fired because I was in the complaint [laughs]. But after this season, he’s become super punctual, that’s famous. Speaking of the strength of a parade.
Marc Jacobs, spring 2002.
The day before 9/11 there was another epic Marc display on the dock. It is also the liberation of perfume. That day there was a massive storm, to the point that water gushed through the tent from the roof. We felt like the store was going to collapse, but just before the doors opened, it stopped raining and everyone arrived.
At the end of the parade, the lowest part of the catwalk opened to the pier and the perfume party began. At that time, he was one of the first to do something similar. Everyone got up from their seats and walked out and it was magical. The rain had almost stopped, the air was excellent and everything was muddy, but I don’t forget that no one cared. No one knew how the global would be replaced the next morning. We rarely see our artistic and surprising performances juxtaposed with those ancient events.
Off-White, Fall 2018 Ready-to-Wear.
My craziest exhibit moment would have to be Off-White’s insurrection exhibit [the crowd revolted outside the brand’s fall 2018 runway exhibit, looking to get in]. Virgil had introduced a sneaker that week and there was a pop-up for it not too much. Far away. We had just designed some T-shirts for one of the immigrant groups there [in Paris], and there was a lot of excitement around the exhibition and V was in the process of finalizing his contract with Louis Vuitton. It was the most chaotic entrance, the kids were running to the door and I had to sneak in to get other people in, fighting with security. I thought I was definitely going to take care of that!
Still, it was one of the most challenging and exciting shows. Most of the posts were there and I think we had everyone from Odell Beckham Jr and Sabrina Carpenter to Justine Skye and others in the front row, and I had to walk through the crowd. to get the others in.
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Windowsen, 2021.
It was the first Windows screen we made, I think in 2020, and I was also on the screen. I’m one of the blue-clad Barbies Katy Perry wore later [to perform on Saturday Night Live in 2021]. Like in Shanghai with Labelhood, we did two exhibitions. I didn’t have a big team at the time, so I greeted other people and asked everyone to come upstairs to see the first one, then I had to run downstairs to get dressed, which required about 10 more people. to enter. Formation
I’m on a rotating podium and it was intended to be a doll, so there’s not much movement. The first screening ended, then the second came. I have to go back, put on my normal clothes and start over.
Then the visualization of the moment starts and I’m in the middle of the level on this podium and everything is a mess. People haven’t figured out their place, others are sitting in random places and I can’t help it. All the time I watch This happens, I don’t paint and I go crazy. I don’t forget to give visual cues to my team about why a magazine editor was sitting somewhere randomly, or why kids were in the wrong seats in the front row. It’s very funny to look back, but that’s when I made the decision not to go through any other exhibition. I also do public relations forever.
Still, that time in Shanghai, it was a lot of fun because it was very DIY, there was a lot of room for that energy. I don’t forget that for Mark Gong’s first show, he built this huge set with his giant call. letters that models can simply walk on. When he arrived that morning, he found out that they had acted wrongly. It was “Gong Mark. ” He was crying and screaming. We had to calm him down, but in retrospect it’s ridiculous.
We have a tendency to have a lot of crashers, and I find those stories quite funny because of the amount of effort they require. There is one user in particular who has been blacklisted, but he manages to resurface and it’s crazy because they build a whole new identity every time.
This had already happened to this user several times, especially at a Heaven Through Marc Jacobs party, but then I saw it again at one of our concerts. What I found literally funny, because their trick to get in was to say they worked in the media, was that they had posted one of those giant old-school passes that wrap around the neck with a cord. I don’t think anyone [in fashion] wears them anymore, however, they themselves posted a literally big media badge with a blurry Nylon mag logo. They kept saying they had been sent to cover the show, but we knew this user didn’t exist. Then they made a big fuss because Fiona [Luo] knew my team, and then Fiona came in and said, “I have no idea who this user is. “
The accident case peaked around 2021 or 2022, just after the pandemic, when TikTok was starting to take off, because one user made the effort to gather all the PR emails from New York Fashion Week into a single sheet and post it. We were almost deceived and gained a lot of spam emails. Most of these other people don’t show up on screens, but it’s a job to stay there sifting through tons of random emails.
Beyoncé in Luar was also attractive because we were informed of her presence, but you never know literally, as you do with any big celebrity, until you get there. He arrived early and everything was very organized. What we weren’t sure was who it would be. I didn’t know if it would be Blue Ivy, or her mother, or who exactly, so we reserved seats for the whole circle of relatives just in case. We also had to have a transparent plan to figure out what the front would look like and how it would come out next, but it all went very well. What was funnier was that I started getting text messages from people, usually editors, asking me if it was true that she was going to be there and telling me they were on their way.
Magliano, men’s autumn 2024.
I’ve been doing this for 20 years and running my own business for seven. When you asked me about this story, I started thinking about one of my creators, Luca Magliano, Luchino! Which sounds like “little Luca” in Italian. In addition to his amazing creations and his numerous titles, especially in Italy where he is a vital voice, he is also a very funny person, but who can also be quite unexpected. Therefore, until the last concert in June, it was very attractive to make plans or wait for what was going to happen immediately after the concert.
Earlier this year, in January, they invited him to do an exhibition at Pitti Uomo, which was a wonderful moment and actually took the logo to the next level. We were all quite nervous, but also very excited!But again, as with Luchino you never know, we had to have, let’s say, a discussion about how vital it was for him to be there afterwards. You see, because he can sometimes worry, he had developed this strange habit of hiding after exhibitions!So, when you, the press, came to look for him, we also had to look for him. Something akin to a tragic comedy: imagine my team running behind the scenes looking for him only to locate him in the most unexpected places. I deserve to say to myself, “Luca will be here in a minute!” and to say that he was with his family circle, or anything else, you know. . . The family circle is everything!
He knew where to hide at all times, because the team knows well what is behind the scenes. Once, in spite of everything, I found him sitting in the bathroom, smoking a pack of cigarettes. It happened in Pitti and it was the most dramatic because it lasted about 40 minutes. I never will. But I’m grateful for everyone’s patience and love, and of course! It’s so captivating and has a very human aspect to it, so other people forgive it, embrace it, and celebrate it. But then, at that last concert in Milan, he was there afterwards, in a position for everyone. He gave up, but I think it’s very funny that we had to walk behind him like cat and mouse.
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