NY Trashion Week Begins

Last night the cordial folks at GQ threw their usual fashion week kick-off party at the ghostlike, Gehry-designed IAC building. I have to say, as it was my fourth such attendance, every other 'kick off' party sort of doesn't count, paling in comparison to GQ's annual soiree (Gaga at AmfAR can go right back to the sooty snowdrift from whence she came). An avid hater of "everybody who is somebody was there" I may have to betray my own morals (or what's left of them) when commenting on the impressive attendees; the designers who really count donned their Thursday best to crown the CFDA's newest Best Menswear Designer in America, including Thom Browne, Michael Bastian and the Rag & Bone boys, and this year the royalty, in the form of $50K and a capsule collection for Levi's, went to designer Billy Reid, a true phoenix of fashion, who, after nabbing the CFDA award of Best New Menswear Designer in 2001 was one of fashion's first affronted with the economic downturn resulting from the implacable events of that September. Nonetheless, 2004 saw his own reinvention and yesterday his efforts finally paid off.
Ugh, let it be known that I actually detest New York Fashion Week.  Where Paris' fashion set, both indigene and immigrant alike, make a demure pilgrimage from venue to venue collecting vision after vision, and Milan maybe a bit haughtier, but no less prestigious, the real contenders find themselves in the Pacific Garbage Patch of the insipid, Kell on Earth-watching swarm of illusorily-entitled interns and entry levels once Fern Mallis sounds the bell that signifies the Big Apple's fashion week is to begin (and hopefully this year it won't sound like that La Roux song that wore out its welcome by the fifth show).  New York Fashion Week has become nothing short of Patrick McMullan: The Musical, with a roughly-chosen cast of early twenty-something girls clad in their finest, cookie cutter jersey dresses, who've made a career out of an internship and consider risky business stealing front row seats at Betsey Johnson.  They view the hierarchy set forth by Facebook and Twitter as golden and incontestable as their Bobbi Brown bronzer, and their equally powder-tanned gaggle of gays are just as bad, if not worse, pilfering more than their share of the second and third rows. They move in distinct cliques, almost synchronized, like the bourgeoisie in virtually every staged version of Evita, languorously schlepping from Milk to Bryant Park and back, like their fatuous entitlement to attend these shows has drained them of their very lifeblood, putting unnecessary stress on their coppery Zara strappy sandals they pass off as "vintage" Prada on account of labels worn unreadable by leathery heels, finishing their day with besotted appearances at the multitude of after-parties, into which they must blow or bargain their way, as any respectable guest list never actually contains their exiguous names or their clingy plus ones.
I'm a real cheerleader, aren't I?
Nonetheless, I'll cover my share of shows and parties as I see fit and which you'll, no doubt, see as entertaining.