Last night Fashion Week kicked off with Fashion's Night Out, a city- and world-wide shopping event half-aimed at celebrating the industry, half-aimed at keeping the industry alive against online retailers and a bad economy. And probably a little-aimed at pissing off anyone trying to walk home from work in SoHo that night.
To celebrate/get-people-to-spend-lots-of-money, shops across the city held special events with free booze and guest appearances. Designers like Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors met with fans, celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Harry Potter signed autographs, and borderline-cartoon-characters like Kim Kardashian and DJ Pauly D did what they normally do. And by that I mean
cause riots that shut down the store they're at.
The whole thing turned parts of Manhattan into a bigger clusterfuck than the ticket line for a Justin Bieber concert. Which was convenient since he was there too, hosting at Dolce & Gabbana.
But as a male model who knew that day as the kickoff to the NFL season before the kickoff as fashion week, I really had one main goal. Amar'e Stoudemire, star of the New York Knicks, was going to be at Macy's. And I was going to get to meet him.
The problem was that I still had castings all evening. But after finishing those and floating in and out of some other stores, I finally made it to Macy's...only to find out that Amar'e had
just left. I don't want to say I was devastated, but I did cry into a random makeup artist's shoulder.
And that was just the beginning. Because despite the fact that I have a phone with Google Maps and can tell time-- and oh,
work in the actual industry-- I managed to be late to
everything.
Somehow, while right in the midst of it, I completely missed Fashion's Night Out...
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| Inside Macy's. It was like everyone was here but Stoudemire. |
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| Joss Stone did a pretty cool concert outside. Just not while I was there. |
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| The red carpet. Minus people. Plus an umbrella and a standpipe. |
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| That guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. After his big taped interview I wasn't around for. |
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| Free drinks that I did not get to drink! |
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| A band I did not get to see play. |
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| The modern day equivalent to the Sword in the Stone. Also, totally failed at getting a key. |
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| A bunch of fun stuff happened here without me, I'm sure. |
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| A DJ nobody was listening to. Or maybe, in a cruel twist of fate, an event I was too EARLY for. |
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| Took this on accident, probably pretend-texting to avoid eye contact with a woman. |
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| Other male models! That I will never be like. |
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| The pink carpet? Also minus people. |
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| Tim Gunn! I finally made one! |
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| Tim Gunn, leaving in his SUV forty-five seconds after I got there. |
So...yeah. One thing I didn't miss, however, was the end of the Packers/Saints game, which I went to watch at a bar after halftime. It ended up being pretty epic. Oh, and speaking of...
JETS CHEERLEADERS OUTSIDE LORD & TAYLOR!
Okay, so maybe I didn't miss everything.
(That wasn't the end of the night either, as awesome people who follow on Twitter know. Other adventures included getting into a swank party using "leather jacket" as a password and being groped during a selection from the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack. Thank you, Fashion's Night Out.)
