Gaggles of young, female fans braved the chill Friday afternoon and camped outside the Bryant Park Grill, where the stars of the reality-show Project Runway were celebrating the show’s wrap.
Former contestant Jack Mackenworth—who withdrew early for health reasons and is rumored to be dating fellow-reality-TV star Dale from season three of Top Chef, a trio of 22-year-old fans informed me—weighed in on the “spectacle” that New York Fashion Week has become.
“Ten years ago you used to be able to sneak into the tents, now you have to have your PR person call another PR person,” Mr. Mackenworth recalled wistfully, as other flamboyantly dressed contestants graciously posed with their teenybopper fans next to us. “Fashion week just gets bigger and bigger every year—It’s really become mayhem.”
On the small swathe of park not occupied by tents, people went about their routines. A table of old men concentrated on a chess game, next to another crew of septuagenarian card players. A homeless man dozed on a chair and people ate their lunch.
Some tertiary Fashion Week players might even argue that there hasn’t been enough mayhem surrounding the 2008 roster of fall shows. As I chatted with a group of skinny-jeaned spectators about their run-in with Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively, a self-proclaimed member of the “stalkarazzi” approached and tried to sell us a security pass to get into the tents.
“You want to get inside,” he whispered under his breath, flashing his clearance badge as if it were an illicit substance. When we refused, he launched into a tirade about how “boring” Fashion Week has been this year.
Usually the runways are set up in a U-shape, he informed us, but this time they are straight so half the people are standing on their chairs. Worst of all, Fashion Week has not drawn the usual list of A-list celebrities.
“The tents are packed with a bunch of old people. I mean the biggest celebrity has been Carmen Electra if that says anything. Notice there are so few stalkarazzi here, because they knew it would be boring,” complained a photographer, who identified himself first as “Marky Mark of the Funky Bunch” and “Anthony Michael Hall” when pressed.
What about Victoria Beckham, I challenged.
“That’s not a celebrity. Natalie Portman is a celebrity, Lindsey Lohan is a celebrity, Paris Hilton is a celebrity. Tonight they’ll all be at Sean Jean, you’ll see,” he said.
Which brought the paparazzo to his central gripe, the decentralization of the latest Fashion Week. In previous seasons marquis designers have all flocked to Bryant Park, he says, but this year the situation has flip-flopped.
“It’s all little shows here this year, the big guys are all over the city. I’ll tell you this park is going down.”
