Paris Fashion Week

Ladies and gentlemen, that time of the year is upon us. The time of year when fashionistas flock all over the world to take part in various fashion weeks...

For the past few seasons, I have been lucky enough to have had internships which granted me access to at least one show during NYC's fashion week and I have somehow managed to weasel my way into various other events.

Just to give a little background for those of you who may not be familiar with the experience of fashion week, it's an event that happens essentially twice a year, once in September and once in February (and for other designers maybe even two more times in December-pre-fall and June-resort) where all the designers present their collections. Spring is shown in September and Fall in February, because of course everything in fashion is done six months ahead, so that magazines and stylists have time to request and photograph items for their respective issues. Anyways in NYC, the epicenter of fashion week has been Bryant Park for the past several years. There is a giant tent and everyday swarms of editors, photographers, buyers, fashionistas, and celebrities flock to the tents to see the collections that will be shown. Sometimes, even the

lucky college student who spends her days pouring over the pages of Vogue can manage to sneak her way in... ;) The city is alive with a certain buzz of excitement and nerves during the week and of course all the models are in town so you can't even walk down the street with out finding yourself face to face with some 6 foot something glamazon. As Carrie Bradshaw put it best, "models who in most cities are safely confined to billboards and magazines, but in Manhattan, actually run wild on the streets."

How many hours will Marc Jacobs keep the audience waiting? Who will Cathy Horyn tear apart the next day? wait and see!

but I digress... My original point was that this year, I was not in my beloved NYC to enjoy fashion week. EVEN BETTER! I am in Paris. And did this aspiring fashionista sit on the sidelines? No she did not.

My Gallatin Advisor is a freelance fashion writer and she gets invited to all sorts of events for fashion week and she even wound up with an invite to a party for Camper and Bernhard Willhelm's recent collaboration here in Paris. Since she is in NY, she passed the invitation along to me! The event was really fun, and I was able to bring my friend Tribbie along with me. We mingled, saw the shoes (which were not my taste, but interesting to see) sipped champagne, and noshed hors d'oeuvres. In our mingling we met a photographer, who took our picture and then proceeded to start a conversation with us. He ended up offering to give us the tickets he had to shows that he could not attend. SCORE!

The first show was today. The designer was John Ribbe, and I have to be honest I had never heard of him before but his clothes were pretty cool and it was a great experience. He also gave us a ticket to Paul and Joe, which I absolutely love but unfortunately cannot attend because I have class at the exact same time! merde! But I told Tibbie to go and report back to me in full detail!

I really didn't think that I was going to be able to do anything for fashion week here in Paris, since I know from previous experience in NYC how hard it can be to get into shows and I had no connections to help me out. Considering, I think I fared pretty well and now that I have an international fashion week under my belt, who knows what's next...