Trippin'

Not me.
Fashion.
And Karlie Kloss at McQueen's.
Fashion is facing so many contradictions it looks as if it was about to trip and fall, face against the ground, any minute.
It seems the economical crisis is the biggest challenge this weird industry has ever had to face.
I mean who is going to buy the 50.000 $ Balenciaga top ? A couple of Russian billionaires ? And then, what next ? The shows will take place in museums where us common people will be able to admire and analyse this thing called couture, remembering how our grand-mothers used to be able to afford at least a couple of pieces a year ?
The over-clever Musée du Textile curator Olivier Saillard told me recently that fashion was about to turn into a discipline, like contemporary art, getting a lot of media attention, but not consumed.
So what's left to do for the designers ?
Be really crazy and take fashion as an art, a big show, almost a joke ?
That's obviously what McQueen chose to do with his crazy circus.
That's probably what Jean-Charles de Castelbajac chose to do too. This designer has never been acclaimed by the fashion people. He even became totally "ringard" a dozen of years ago. But his humouristic, open-minded, political and sarcastic vision of fashion seduced many trend-setters, wanabe celebrities and cool kids in Paris. He is the only designer I know that communicates directly with the public on facebook.
Anyways his show was clever. No Zahm, Wintour or Roitfeld was there, but the room was packed with an original, crazy-looking, young hipster crowd that rushed on the catwalk at the end of the show to get a grip of the Obama bills the models threw in the air during the Finale.
Noone thinks his Wharol dress is sharp, stylish or futuristic. It's just funny and so accurate.
The designer endorses his role as an artist. As an artist, he's here to give emotion, analysis and his vision of society.What about the rest ?
Well the rest, the ones who still haven't understood that fashion for the next few years will all be about DIY and thrifting, they are just trying VERY VERY hard to be bankable. They just wish they could sell a lot of pieces to buyers. And the buyers need garantees it's gonna work. So what do they do ? They redo Balmain and Givenchy fw 08, cause it was the last thing that worked. And I think if I ever see another pair of leather slim pants, black wedges boots, panther print, fur details, torn tights, studs or pagoda shoulders, I might as well throw up.
And black, black, black, black everywhere.

Can't even remember where this is from. They are all SO SIMILAR.
People are tired. There are now fewer VIPs than street style photographers at the shows and even the most fashion-crazy bloggers are getting bored. Garance, July, Susie... They all call for inovation, creativity, confort, sensibility.
There was another option this season : designing such an ugly collection that the most beautiful thing on the show was this :
And whoever doesn't realize Lara looks like a birthday cake on this should get a new pair of glasses.
I mean WHY pink wool ???
The only thing Chanel did right this season, is this party rue Cambon, where I got a chance to dance with Milla, noticed that Kate Moss was really getting fat(ter), Lilly Allen drunk(er) and Jefferson Hack hot(ter).
There was an incredible fashion climax when I climbed up to Mademoiselle Coco's private appartment where Karl Lagerfeld, the Mulleavy Sis' (Rodarte), Suzy Menkes and Colette's Sarah Lerfel where chatting on Coco's mythic sofa. Anyone weaker than me might have fashion ODed at this very moment.
As I walked down, Lilly and Raquel where dancing and I wondered how they could still be that happy and healthy after four fashion weeks.
My secret crush ignored me cause there were too many models in the room and I therefore became quite irrelevant.
From that moment, as I was just finishing up my eighth glass of champagne, everything became blurry.

I left the place with my best friend, skipped the Castelbajac aftershow at Baron, the Kate Moss appearance at Montana, and had a huge entrecôte, with french fries, in a shitty restaurant open all night on the Champs Elysée, with my red lipstick and 15 cm heels.
That was the best moment of my fashion week.

Stuck

LET ME OUT !
I DON'T WANT TO BE A FASHION VICTIM !

There's something a little scary about Paris fashion week. This profusion of shows, people and parties is not normal. No normal person would be able to follow that crazy rythm. My days - even though they start around noon, which means I miss all the morning shows, but that's kind of their problem - my days feel like weeks to my poor little tired body and mind.
But thank god I am high...
High on fashion.
A famous fashion guru whose name I've already mentionned here (I don't want to write it down too often cause you might find out I'm kind of secretly in love with him) told me yesterday night that I have a "naive" view on fashion. I guess he is right.
I can love a monacal black velvet Lanvin dress enough to take 6 pictures of it in a row - blurry artistic picture though, have a look at this amazingness on style.com, it's the last passage.

(check out that this time I got a very decent seating !)

I love fashion enough to be excited to steal a picture of Carine Roitfeld running out of the show.
OK.
I mean Carine Roitfeld's back, running out of the show....
You cannot immagine how excited everybody was about the Lanvin défilé. It was a suspended moment, out of time, out of space, those splendid heavy strapped sharp black and shiny silhouettes walking for what seemed a second or ages on the wet black tarmac... Those exagerated gold jewels, those weapon shoes, those belted drapée. I felt shivers all over my arms. I really did. That only happened to me once before. Lanvin ss O9.
Anyways Lanvin was great. And unfortunately you can't tell what a moment of poetry was the Margiela show on this pic.
I can't find a close-up of the shoes on style.com... They were amazing half-stilettos, half-wedges.
I ended up with the show of a girl I really love, Andrea Crews. I love her amazon, jungle warrior, gothic princess, punk godess vision of woman.
After that, it was 22.30 and I was already starting to get drunk. Yeah, you know, the little glass of cherry liquor at Lanvin, the glass of red wine at Margiela, the Vitamin Water - vodka cocktail at Andrea Crews.... See, that is the secret of fashion people who are able to keep on partying after a whole full crazy day of shows. They get drunk. I got drunk.
So I kept on partying.
Went to this new very exclusive place in Saint Germain called le Montana. There were so many celebrities I would feel guilty to name them, like I am violating the founding rules of a secret club. Anyways most of them are french and you really don't care. That thing is totally crazy. It is a full open bar. Drunk drunk and drunker.
Everybody ended up at le Baron where a compact fashion crowd was queuing outside hoping to get into the night temple and stare for a little while at the models and editors dancing their tiring day away on the dance floor. I sneaked in immediatly. This place is a second home to me.
The atmosphere inside was wet and electric. It was 3.30 am and I realized that from that very minute, people would not be able to say anything coherent, and would not remember what happened from now on the next day. So I just left, without saying goodbye of course. Noone is supposed to know when you went to bed. Actually you're kind of supposed to never go to bed.
I escaped fashion for a few hours.
I am about to dive naïvely in it again.
It's 1 pm. My hungover brain is now high on Advil, and I have to rush for the Jeremy Scott show.
xxx

Dévastée

Argh.
Tired tired tired.
And upset and fed up with a lot of stuff.
Fashion week is starting today in Paris. Crazy week.
I need energy now !!!
But first let me tell you about my last day in Principe de Savoia.
I was so bored, I was working on this big piece I had to give on Monday. It was 2 am and I was DYING for a cigarette. So I decided I would just go down in the lobby and find one. I was weraing wool stockings and a big grey sweater. I had taken my make-up off, and my hair was all messy, almost dirty. I looked like anything but a cool fashion editor in a luxury hotel. I looked more like a teenager on a pajamas party. I first ran into this cute 25 year old little DJ boy who flirted with me for a while and offered me to smoke a joint with him in his room. I was about to say yes, when I ran into this crowd :
(Photo courtesy Purple Diary)
They all were in such a good mood they really didn't care I was wearing pajamas, and I ended up shaking hands with Emmanuelle Alt and Mario Sorrenti in my wool stockings and stained - shit!! - grey sweater.
Tbe night then became really crazy. I should censor it here, though. I never came back to work. Olivier Zham, Milla Jovovich, two different hotel rooms and a joint rolled by a young boy are involved. I went to sleep round 7 am. It was fun. Really fun. And all this fun happened in my pajamas, and without a single drop of alcohol. Which is kind of a miracle.
On the next day, or, better said, three hours later, I was wearing my H&M dress that looks a lot like a Jil Sander and going on with my Milan fashion week activities.
I got obsessed by the shoes at the Dolce Gabanna show :


aaaaaaahhhhhhhh.....
Thought the Finale was a little "too much" :

(Shit. In this photo you can totally see that I am no first row at all. )

And flew back to Paris.
(Actually I am cheating, this was taken on my way there but I love the Evian bottle effect of it!)

Back in Paris, I realized my two best friends were fighting over a man, my almost boyfriend hated me for wanting independance in our couple, my bosses wanted my article NOW, and I was so tired. So I worked and worked, tried to handle my hysteric friends, cried with my almost boyfriend on the phone and slept nine hours twice.
Today. Well today is Paris fashion week starting.
I don't have any invites for Gareth Pugh.
I am not that cool. But I was the crazy pajama girl of the Principe di Savoia, and that's cooler.
I want to see the Devastée show. It fits my state of mind perfectly. Devastated.

Principe di Savoia

Steven Meisel - March 2009 W

I am lucky but I am bored.
I did the hot bath already, and ate all the cashew nuts from the mini-bar. I always eat the cashew nuts from the mini-bar first thing when I get in an hotel room. Private ritual. I just ordered room-service. A salad an a glass of wine. I am not hungry, just bored. Italian TV sucks and there is not a single page of style.com I haven't seen twice at least today. They charge 24 euros a day for internet connexion and a pay-per-view movie is 18 euros !
Anyways.
Sometimes, being alone in a luxury hotel feels like the top of the world to me. A Lost in Translation experience. I am so able to see myself as the heroine of a movie called My Life. Sometimes.
Today I can't. I feel like loud music, drunk friend and stilettos that kill your feet. I could just dress up, go out and party ? I brought cool outfits, just in case. In case this guy would have wanted to take me out to fw parties. He just texted me he was stuck at a dinner. Which means he probably is hanging out with a few models.
Maybe I should call this hot lesbian girl I know from Paris and met in the lobby earlier ?
Have to work early tomorrow though.
I'm still hungover from last night. One of those crazy Baron nights you don't remember the last few hours from. Don't know how I even got to Milan today.
I miss Paris.
Is writing about my life compatible with the anonymous blogger status ?
Sigh.
Boredom.
Sigh.
Bad mood alert.
More from the Meisel W editorial ?
OK.
I might just call this girl.
Room service arrived.
The salad is ridiculously small (28 euros) but the wine is great.

I'm coming

Really. Since I have them at my feet, my life has changed. It's been about six hours now. Every ten minutes, roughly, I have a mini orgasm. There is this weird smile floating on my face and when I walked to Montmartre earlier, I really had the feeling I was so cool that Kate Moss would just be "almost cool" compared to me, at this minute.
Am I crazy ?
Wait. I am totally aware they are not obvious. I know they look a little like fat monk sandals stuffed with gigantic black suede socks. Actually that's what they are.
But they are so quircky, so Margiela-ish, and the leather bandage makes it so Rodarte fw09-ish... no ?? Is it me ???
Ok, whatever, I am litteraly HIGH on my boots, and you know what ? I am in a such a good mood I feel like posting all the stuff I liked from London and nyc, cause I liked stuff, actually. I was so grumpy, though... That was all because of this horrible week end in Berlin.
Asshole.
Anyways ! I feel happy now. xx
PS I got my shoes at the new OMG vintage store that just opened, right accross the street (this is very bad news for my banker). They are italian 80s vintage the tag says Mare. In case someone cares.

NO FUN in NYC

All you fashion lovers of course know the happy cycle of fashion weeks is on again, starting in NYC, as usual, before gracing London, Milan and finally my beloved Paris with its delicious and vital superficiality. Like all of you guys, I check out style.com every morning when I wake up, followed by Garance and Scott, to get a grasp of what's going on in the big Apple. The internet coverage is so exhaustive I really have the feeling I am there, dreading the cold weather, trying to spot Erin Wasson and her huge fur coat, and getting late for the Marc Jacobs show.
Anyways. It seems that we are not missing this much, guys.
Things arent as fun as they used to be.
Fashion wise, first. I mean, come on, Alexander, we still love you, and we definetely gonna fall for cropped leggings soon, if you say so, but why, oh why so black and white ?
And you, Pronza Schouler, I love you still but why so brownish, why so... boring ?
Thank god there was, you, my beloved Mulleavy sisters and those boots I am so extatic about I might dream about them every night till the next fashion week. And Marc Jacobs, whose collection I just LOVED, but couldn't say it better that July stars did.
No, no... There is no fun in NYC.
There is no party ! On the first days of the week, I received BBMs from all my lucky - or not - models, editors or fashion geek friends who are there... There were all like : God ! There is no party ! All the designers canceled them all! F...ing Recession !
No parties on NYC fashion week ? Come on ! That's like no crocodile on a Lacoste sweater ! That can't be ! But unfortunately, it is. No big Diesel bash, no crazy Marc Jacobs cocktail, just a few shy aftershow dinners and a handfull of shops or galllery openings...
No, there was no parties in NYC this week, except for two. The Purple dinner, and the Vladimir Roitfeld exhibition opening. Thank God the frenchies are here to make this depressing time a little more fun. Thank God Olivier and Carine are here to entertain the Olsen sisters, Milla Jovovitch and Gisele Bundchen !
Oh yes, my french fellows, we can now say it out loud and clear. We own the night.

Frozen

It's snowing for real. Big white flakes falling quietly from the white sky through my window. Tomorrow I might go to the Tuileries for another winter walk. The gardens look so beautiful under the snow. But until then, I'll stay home, read the 100th issue of Numero and stream the first episodes of season 6 of L Word... By the way, why did I just found that out now ? Why didn't anyone tell me they were back?

Wall fashion

Rue des Rosiers, Le Marais

Mystery Woman

I am always intrigued when I pass by these big black and white pictures, stuck on a wall in le Marais. I love her awkwardness. I love the little details, the white flowers in her hair, the tartan handbag. Who is this woman? When were those pictures taken? Where is she going ?