The talk, as we huddled together en masse awaiting someone to let us progress to our seats, was of tents.
“We went camping, and it was a really big tent,” the very cool lady said to the very other cool lady next to me.
“Like, ‘glamping,’ then,” the other lady ventured.
“Yeah, and I’ve seen these really cool yurts.”
Silence.
“Like, a yurt is…,” she went on to explain.
And so the pressing matters of the day continued to be raised and debated on Monday afternoon at New York Fashion Week, in the bowels of Moynihan Station.
We were being herded down corridors—after passing the kind of “you’re not going anywhere without a ticket” check-in the TSA could learn from—into a huge auditorium, and Jeremy Scott’s NYFW show for his own label, rather than Moschino, of which he is the creative director.
Scott, who was served legal papers recently by an artist claiming copyright infringement, is most famous in the mainstream for dressing Katy Perry for her halftime show—dancing sharks and all—at this year’s Super Bowl.
Miley Cyrus and Rita Ora—who was there Monday, in sunglasses, next to a fluttery cabal of fellow celebs and well-known catwalk habitués, including Perez Hilton, Nicky Hilton, Tyga, and Coco Rocha—are also Scott fans.
Scott was even name-checked by Kanye West, at the outset of the rapper’s rant about art, culture, and politics at the VMAs when he went up to collect the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard award. He had to put his Scott-redesigned Moonman down, West said, “beautiful” as it was.
And—like the author of this piece—Scott is also a fan of CBS’s majestic daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. He’s even appeared on the show, implausibly selling an “outrageous, but affordable” exclusive collection to Lauren Fenmore, for her rarely seen, supposedly high-end fashion emporium.
Scott’s designs are gleeful mash-ups of pop culture and eras; a riot of big hair, cartoons, and bright colors. He designed Britney’s flight attendant outfit in her “Toxic” video, and Rihanna’s denim look for “We Found Love.”
Finally seated, the NYFW audience was treated to a stomping, unsmiling group of models in psychedelically bright tops and skirts walking the snaking U-shape of two front rows.
The tops were cropped and the skirts micro. There were babydoll nighties and bikinis, and the colors were tangy and Day-Glo—orange and livid green. Some outfits featured jangling Perspex or chains. It was Valley of the Dolls, with even more dolls.
Gigi Hadid, a model very much of the moment, strutted her stuff in a silver bikini top and lime-green skirt—although we were none the wiser it was her, as all the female models had towering beehives, their curled ends bouncing along with the music. Cartoon characters featured on a number of sweaters. Orange and pink swapped out as the lead color in either component of a paneled cropped top-and-skirt combo.
A few male models managed to smile more than their female counterparts, in tight leather pants and boldly printed trousers and shirts, and one even sported a tight pair of swimming trunks. Yellows, pinks, and blues were overlaid on shirts, some with faces printed on to them. Silver and monochrome clashed with reds and greens. Distinctive accessories included a handbag shaped like a flower petal.
It was a zingy reminder, even if the models looked deadly serious, that fashion is, can be, should be, fun. Scott himself appeared at the end to take a little bow, which—if you had been brought up to applaud someone taking a bow—was a little odd, as all the impatient, exotically plumaged humans next to me were rushing to rise and be gone.
They had other shows to be at, and air to kiss. If the flashbulbs had popped around Ora, Perez Hilton, and the Beckerman sisters—who are “big on Instagram” I was assured by another attendee (which will never scan as well as “big in Japan,” sorry)—the standout cameos were of people who have lived far longer, richer lives in fashion.
The wonderful New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham was there, patrolling the rows and later the exits, looking beadily for the best subjects. Meanwhile, model and fashion world personality Iris Apfel, dressed all in black, was sitting front row, politely speaking—and accommodating many photograph requests—to the many who flocked to pay homage to her.
Seeing the affection—far from patronizing, more respectably worshipful—paid to these two made you understand that fashion really isn’t just for the young. And the young know that themselves. The question for these cool kids, in their asymmetrical this-and-that and bleached quiffs, is do they have Cunningham and Apfel’s staying power?